


Shelter in Place

by BritHistorian



Category: 21st Century CE RPF, Weki Meki (Band)
Genre: Coronavirus, F/F, Gen, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:08:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23296774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritHistorian/pseuds/BritHistorian
Summary: Thanks to the coronavirus, Weki Meki are confined to their dorms. Groceries will be delivered every morning, but no one is allowed in, no one is allowed out - they just have to wait. Even without a pandemic raging outside the dorm, having all the members of Weki Meki confined in their too-small apartment is bound to generate a lot of drama. With the added pressure of world events, it turns the dorm into a pressure cooker. Who's going to explode first?
Relationships: Choi Yoojung/Kim Doyeon, Ji Suyeon/Lee Seojung | Sei, Lee Seojung | Sei/Noh Hyojung | Lucy
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	1. The Order Comes Down

"Hey everyone!" Suyeon called out. "I just got an important email from manager-nim. Come listen."

The other members of Weki Meki clustered around Suyeon to see what was so important that she had to interrupt everything to read it to them.

"Because of the coronavirus outbreak," Suyeon read from her phone, "you are to stay in your dorm. Food will be delivered every morning - they'll knock on the door, give them a count of 10 to get away from the door before opening. If any of your members needs anything else, email me and I'll try to arrange to have it delivered. I know this is not how you'd planned on spending your spring, but this is where we are right now. This will probably last for several weeks, so do your best to get along."

"Several weeks!" Lua moaned, slumping back in her chair. "We're going to miss all of this year's cherry blossoms!" 

"I'll miss the last of this school year!" Lucy whined. "Am I going to have to take this year all over again?"

Suyeon shrugged. "I don't know. Want me to email manager-nim and ask?"

Lucy nodded. "I'll be in my bed if you need me - I'm going to go watch a movie."

"What movie?" Elly asked.

Lucy shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe Kiki's Delivery Service."

"Can I come watch it with you?" Elly asked.

Lucy smiled, pleased to be getting some attention from one of her unnies. "Sure," she said. "Come on!"

After Lucy and Elly had gone, Suyeon looked around at the other members. "I don't like this any more than you do," she said, "but we've got to do our best to get through it. If you've got a problem with someone, try to work it out. If you can't work it out, come to me and I'll try to help you work it out."

"What if we have a problem with you?" Doyeon asked, an impish grin on her face.

Suyeon rolled her eyes. "If you and I can't work it out, we'll go to one of the other unnies and get her input. Why? Do you have a problem with me?"

Doyeon raised her hands defensively, as if to fend off Suyeon. "No! Not at all! I was just wondering."

"Well, if there aren't any more questions, I'm going to go get started on tonight's dinner," Suyeon said. After looking around and seeing that no one seemed to have any questions, she got up and headed for the kitchen.

"I had figured something like this was going to happen," Sei said. "I mean, we had to perform all our 'Dazzle Dazzle' promos without an audience, and the coronavirus is still out there. I just didn't expect it to last for weeks."

"The coronavirus is bad news," Rina said. "My grandfather's in the hospital with it."

Lua reached out and took Rina's hand. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "How's he doing?"

Rina sniffled and blinked back a few tears. "They think he's going to be okay," Rina said. "I just miss him so much and I wish I could go see him." The tears she'd been struggling to hold back finally broke free. Lua wrapped her arms around her and rocked her back and forth.

Sei, Yoojung, and Doyeon looked at each other, nodded silently, and left for their bedroom. They knew Rina would be embarrassed that she had cried in front of them, and they didn't want to make it worse by being there when she stopped crying.

Sei flopped down on her bed and picked up a magazine. "We've got to remember to do something nice for Lua. Rina always keeps everything bottled up inside, so who knows how long Lua's going to be out there comforting her."

Doyeon looked over a Lua's bed and shrugged. "Lua never seems to mind," she said. "She can always deal with Rina when none of us can."

Yoojung picked up her phone and started thumbing through her messages. "No, Sei's right. We should do something." She fell silent then, reading.

"Like what?" Doyeon asked. "It's not like we can go get her a coffee or take her out for ramen or any of the things we'd usually do."

Sei shrugged. "I don't know. We'll just have to be creative." She put her magazine down and looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. "Maybe we could do a makeover on her."

Doyeon shook her head. "No, that's what we'd do for you. Lua would be #nomakeup every day if she could get away with it."

Sei rolled over to face Doyeon. "Now that we're stuck in here every day, she can do that. We're not even going to get to see the food delivery person."

"We'll come up with something," Yoojung said. "Just keep it in the back of your mind: Something nice for Lua. It doesn't even have to be a big thing. Maybe just letting her have the first shower, so she can have as much hot water as she wants, or letting her watch her shows on the big TV, or. . . I don't know. We'll think of something."

Sei and Doyeon nodded in agreement. Doyeon leaned over and looked out the window. Normally she'd be seeing all sorts of people going about their daily business, but now Seoul was like a ghost town. The highways were empty, the street vendors were all home. The only people she saw were a woman jogging with her dog and a man sweeping up trash outside a store. "It's probably his store," she said to herself. "He wants to keep everything clean in case someone comes in, but he probably hasn't had any customers at all today. He probably lives with his wife in an apartment above the store, and their kids have all gone off to college." She leaned on the windowsill and sadly watched the city.

"Wow! Way to be the moodmaker, Doyeon," Sei said, as she fished around on the floor next to her bed trying to find a pen.

"I'm just saying what I see," Doyeon said. "It's not my fault the city's depressing right now."

"Well, try to make it seem less depressing," Sei said. "Who knows how long we'll be in here, and we need to keep our spirits up." Having finally found a pen, she rolled over and started taking the personality quiz in her magazine.

Doyeon got up and headed for the door. "Whatever," she said. "I'm going to go see if Suyeon needs any help in the kitchen."

A couple of minutes after Doyeon left, Sei put down her magazine, sat up, and looked at Yoojung. "Was I wrong?" she asked. "Do I need to go apologize to Doyeon?"

Yoojung finished typing the sentence she was in the middle of before responding. "You might have been a little harsh," she said. "Not exactly wrong, just didn't exactly say things in the best possible way."

Sei pondered this a moment, her mouth quirked to the side. "I'd better go talk to her," she said. "No sense starting this whole thing off with Doyeon with her feelings hurt." She put her magazine down, the quiz half-finished, and headed for the kitchen.

Yoojung looked around - she had the room to herself. She knew that with the whole group stuck in the dorm, times like this would be extremely rare. She got up, pushed all the beds against the walls, put on some music, and started dancing. She had worked out most of the steps for the song she was choreographing when she heard Suyeon call everyone for dinner. She turned off her phone and headed for the kitchen.

Rina looked around the table at her bandmates, her eyes red from all the crying she'd done before dinner. "I wish we could have had some warning before this happened, so we could have had one last day to stock up on whatever we need. I'm almost out of shampoo."

Sei nodded. "And we're almost out of all the teas."

"And gochujang, and fish sauce, and dried shrimp," Suyeon added, updating the list on her phone as everyone chimed in with what they needed. After a while, she noticed that Lucy was the only one who hadn't asked for anything. "What about you, Hyoding?" Suyeon asked. "What do you need me to add to the shopping list."

Lucy looked up, startled. "Oh, I'm fine," she said. "I don't need anything."

"Well, if you think of something, let me know before you run out," Suyeon said. "Who knows how long it's going to take Manager-nim to get us this stuff. Lots of people are probably ordered stuff, so the delivery companies will be overworked and running behind."

Lucy nodded. "Okay," she said, "but there's nothing that I need right now." She got up and put her bowl in the sink, then headed back into the living room. 

Sei watched her go, certain that something was bothering Lucy that she wasn't telling them about. Maybe she didn't need anything added to the shopping list, but she needed something. Lucy was usually one of the moodmakers in the group, and Sei could understand her being sad or upset about their situation, or could understand her putting on a false front of cheerfulness to try to avoid bringing anyone else down, but this carefully managed neutrality was totally out of character for Lucy. As she turned her attention back to her noodles, she made a mental note to try to talk to Lucy and figure out what was wrong.

"I don't think that will work," Suyeon was saying to Yoojung. "Manager-nim wouldn't want to buy us pork belly under normal circumstances. She's certainly not going to buy it for us when we're stuck in the dorm and can't work off the calories."

"I'm just saying it can't hurt to ask," Yoojung said.

"If you tell her it's a special treat to help keep up our spirits, she might say yes," Doyeon added.

Sighing with exasperation, Suyeon turned to Elly. "And I suppose you think I should ask for pork belly too?"

Elly shook her head, startled out of her reverie. "What?" she asked. "Oh, I don't know. I was just waiting for you all to finish eating so I could get started on the dishes.

"Okay," Suyeon said, shutting off her phone and sticking it in her pocket. "We'll finish the shopping list after we eat. But I still don't think the pork belly's a good idea." She returned her attention to her noodles, slurping contentedly. After a moment of disgruntled silence, Doyeon and Yoojung followed her example.

After they all finished eating, they left Elly to the dishes. As they walked out into the living room, Sei said, perhaps a little louder than was strictly necessary, "Suyeon-unnie, I need your advice about something. Do you have time to talk?"

Suyeon smiled at her. "At this point, I've got pretty much nothing but time. Why don't we go to my room - Elly's doing the dishes, so we should be able to talk privately for a little bit."

No sooner had Suyeon shut the door to her room than Sei grabbed her and kissed her ferociously. "I've been wanting to do that all day, ever since the lockdown was announced," Sei said. She went up on her tiptoes so that she was the same height as Suyeon. "Are you sure we have to keep this a secret?"

Suyeon nodded. "Absolutely. I think it's necessary for harmony in the group if we keep it a secret."

Sei pouted. "But what about Doyeon and Yoojung?"

"That's different," Suyeon said, shaking her head. "Doyeon and Yoojung have been together since I.O.I. It's not like they chose each other over the rest of us. And besides, neither of them is the leader."

"You could step down, let Elly be leader," Sei suggested, smiling hopefully.

Suyeon shook her head again. "No way. Elly wants to be leader, and that's why she shouldn't ever be - she wants the power and she'd use it. And who know if we'd like what she used it for. But anyway, I know you didn't call me in here just so we could have the same argument we've had hundreds of times already."

Sei wrapped her arms around Suyeon and kissed her gently on the lips. "No, I didn't. I mean, not just for that - I mean, I do wish we didn't have to keep us a secret. I'd love to be able to cuddle up to you when we watch movies, and to get kisses whenever I need them, and all the things and Yoojung and Doyeon can do that we can't, but this time there was something else. I'm worried about Lucy."

Suyeon nodded. "Something's definitely bothering her, beyond just finding out we're stuck here until who knows when. Do you think I should talk to her?"

Sei thought for a moment, then said "No, I probably should - a lot of times Lucy will tell me things she won't tell anyone else. I was just hoping you might have some insight into what was bothering her, so I know what I'm walking into."

Suyeon kissed Sei briefly, finishing with sucking on her bottom lip for a second. "No," she finally said, "I've got no idea. But I just heard the water turn off in the kitchen, which means we've got about 30 seconds before Elly knocks on the door." She kissed Sei more vigorously than before, her tongue exploring the younger girl's mouth. 

Long before either of them was ready for the kiss to end, Sei pulled away, smiled sadly at Suyeon and said, "I'd better go." She opened the just as Elly was about to knock om it, and called back over her shoulder. "Thank you unnie! I feel much better now!" She turned and smiled at Suyeon, then headed for her room.

Elly came in and shut the door behind her. "What was that about?" she asked, gesturing toward the door.

Suyeon shrugged. "Sei was just feeling a little upset about the shelter in place order and needed someone to vent to."

"Better you than me," Elly said with a laugh. "I don't know how you deal with it, the maknaes running to you with their problems all times of the day and night."

Suyeon laughed. "And that's why they don't come to you! God, you are the most unsympathetic person I've ever met."

"I'm not unsympathetic," Elly said, putting her earplugs in her ears and turning on some music. "I just deal with my own problems and expect other people to deal with theirs. It's easier that way."

Suyeon shook her head as she heading out to the living room to see what the others had on TV. "Someday," she thought, "Elly's going to need someone to help with her problems, and then who will be there for her?" Of course, no sooner had she asked herself the question than Suyeon knew the answer: She would be there for Elly. She might not always like all of her members, but she was their leader and she felt responsible for them. If any of them needed help, she counldn't refuse help. She often wished she wasn't their leader - like pretty much every time she talked to Sei - but she was, and she had to deal with that. She just wished Sei didn't have to deal with it too, but if the other members knew about Suyeon and Sei, then every time Suyeon made a decision, they'd be looking for Suyeon to favor Sei, and they'd see favoritism even if it wasn't there, and it would cause so much drama in the group. Sighing inwardly, she pasted on a smile and joined the group clustered around the television.


	2. A girl with bangs

Elly was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the knock that signaled the arrival of the day's grocery delivery when she heard the maknae's door open and close. 

"Good morning Rina!" she called out. "I'm in the kitchen."

Rina poked her head in the kitchen door. "How'd you know it was me?"

Elly laughed and pointed at the clock. "Have you even known Lucy to wake up this early without someone dragging her kicking and screaming out of her bed?"

"Good point," Rina said. She poured herself a glass of juice from the pitcher in the refrigerator - which was almost empty; hopefully there was juice in today's grocery delivery - and sat down next to Elly.

"What are you doing up so early, unnie?" Rina asked.

Elly shrugged. "I just couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd get up and wait for the grocery delivery."

Rina looked at the clock again. "Do you really expect them to come this early?"

"No," Elly said, fidgeting with her empty teacup, "but I couldn't sleep anyway, and I didn't want to leave our food sitting out in the hall because we all overslept."

Rina took a sip of her juice and nodded. "Good idea," she said, "but I'm up now. Why don't you go get a shower?"

Elly shook her head. "No, I'm fine for now. Why don't you go get your shower?"

Rina drank the last of her juice and put her cup in the sink. "If you're sure. . ." she said as she headed for the door.

"Just don't use all the hot water," Elly said, the sternness of her voice in contrast to the smile on her face.

Rina laughed as she skipped out of the kitchen. "I think you've got me confused with Lua!" she called back over her shoulder.

* * *

As it turned out, Elly was still in the kitchen waiting for the delivery a couple of hours later, when the others started waking up.

When Suyeon woke up, she took one look at Elly and said "Why don't you go take a nap? You look like hell."

"No, I'm waiting for the deli-" When a yawn cut off Elly's words, she looked sheepishly at Suyeon and said "Fine. I'll go take a nap."

Suyeon suppressed a giggle at Elly as she stormed off toward their bedroom, her mannerisms bearing every resemblance to a toddler who didn't want to take a nap.

Just then there was a loud knock at the door. By the time Suyeon counted to 10, Yoojung and Doyeon had joined her by the apartment door. When Suyeon opened the door, she found 5 big bags waiting for them.

"It looks like Manager-nim ordered everything that was on our list plus a whole lot more," Suyeon said.

Yoojung, struggling to see around Suyeon, asked "Did she order the pork belly?"

Suyeon picked up a bag and handed it to Yoojung. "If she did, we'll find it when we get everything unpacked and put away. She handed two bags to Doyeon and then picked up the last 2 herself.

Unpacking the bags was like Christmas morning. Not only had Manager-nim ordered all their usual groceries, she'd ordered everything on their shopping list - even the pork belly! - and a few things they hadnt thought to order themselves. At the bottom of the last bag, Suyeon found a smaller bag, stapled shut. 

"What's that?" Doyeon asked.

Suyeon picked up the bag, surprised at how heavy it was for such a small bag. "I don't know," she said. "I wasn't expecting anything else, and certainly not anything this heavy." She put the bag down on the table and opened it up. Inside were a bag of sugar, a jar of instant coffee, and a half gallon of milk, along with a note that said "Something to make your day a little more pleasant. Check the internet for instructions for dalgona coffee." The note was signed "Uncle."

By the time Suyeon finished reading the note, Yoojung had pulled out her phone and looked up dalgona coffee. "Ooh," she said, "that looks good!" You mixed equal parts sugar, instant coffee, and hot water and whipped them together until they made a foam. Then you poured a glass of milk and put a big spoonful of the foam on top of the milk.

"Let's make it now!" Yoojung squealed.

Suyeon shook her head as she put the sugar and coffee on top of the fridge. "No, not right now. For one thing, Elly just went to go take a nap, if she can sleep through all the noise you make, and for another, we'll probably be getting really bored at around 3 or 4 this afternoon, so that would be a good time to make it."

"Yeah, you're right," Yoojung conceded, as she put the milk in the fridge.

"You don't have sound that disappointed," Suyeon said with a laught. "It's not like I'm making you wait until tomorrow or next week or something. Come on - why don't you go get the cards and we'll see if you can finally manage to beat me at go-stop."

Doyeon laughed. "No one can beat Suyeon at go-stop!"

Yoojung scowled at her girlfriend as she rushed off to get the cards. "I'll be the first! You'll see!"

* * *

Three o'clock came and they made the dalgona coffee. They all agreed it was delicious but took a lot of stirring. "Still," Suyeon said, "we've got enough stuff here to make it a couple more times."

Everyone was in the process of leaving the kitchen to find something else to do when Lucy grabbed Sei's hand. "Unnie," she said, her eyes sparkling, "can I talk to you for a minute?"

Sei nodded. "Here, or. . ."

"We can go to my room," Lucy said. "Rina won't come in."

Sei followed Lucy to the small bedroom that she shared with Rina. There was barely room to walk between the two beds, the room was so small. Lucy shut the door, sat down on her bed, and motioned for Sei to sit down next to her.

"What's wrong, Lucy?" Sei asked.

Lucy blinked away a few stray tears that had started overflowing her eyes. "Unnie, I'm so scared. Anyone can get the virus, and anyone who gets it can die from it!"

Sei reached out and took Lucy's hand. "That's Fantagio's having us stay in the dorm. If we don't come into contact with people, we barely have a chance of catching it."

"But what if one of does catch it?" Lucy asked, clinging tightly to Sei's hand. "What if I catch it? What if I die? I'm not ready to die! I haven't even had my first kiss!"

With this, Lucy began crying in earnest, tears streaming down her face. Sei scooted closer to Lucy, put her arm around her and did her best to try to be comforting.

"You're gonna be fine - we all are," Sei said, with more conviction than she really felt. "And when you have your first kiss, it's going to be just as magical as you think it's going to be!"

Lucy grabbed a Kleenex and wiped her eyes. "You think so?"

Sei nodded. "You're going to find the guy or girl of your dreams, and you're going to kiss them, or they're going to kiss you, and you'll remember that moment forever." Sei gestured vaguely toward the bed. "Why don't you lie down and close your eyes, and you can tell me what you imagine it will be like. That should help put you in a better mood."

"Okay," Lucy said, somewhat skeptically. She stretched out on the bed, then gestured for Sei to lie down next to her. Once they were both lying there, staring up at the ceiling, Lucy began talking quietly. "I imagine I've found the girl of my dreams. She's a couple of inches shorter than me, and she wears her hair with bangs. We're sitting next to each other and talking, on a bench or a bed or a sofa or something. I reach out and brush her bangs to the side, because they're getting too long and they've fallen in her eyes. As she leans toward me, I can tell that the time is finally right. I lean down and kiss her. Her lips are so soft against mine. We're both kind of awkward, but neither one of us cares. We kiss like that for a long time. . ."

Lucy trailed off into silence. After a while, Sei looked over and saw that Lucy had fallen asleep. "That happens sometimes after a good cry," she thought. Moving carefully, so as not to jostle the bed and wake Lucy up, Sei quietly got up and left the room. The other were gathered in the living room, playing card games, or fiddling around with their phones, or watching a historical drama on the TV. Seeing Rina on the end of the couch, Sei crept over next to her and softly said "If you go into your room anytime soon, be quiet - Lucy's asleep."

Rina nodded. "Thanks for the warning, but I'm going to be here a while - we're planning to watch at least 2 more episodes of Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung today. You want to come watch with us?"

Sei shook her head - historical dramas weren't really her thing; she preferred contemporary dramas. "Thanks, but I'm going to go watch Suyeon and Yoojung play go-stop - maybe today will be the day Yoojung finally wins a game."

Just then they heard a quiet clatter from behind them as Suyeon threw down her last cards. "I win again!" she said.

"Or maybe not," Rina said with a laugh. Sei patted Rina's shoulder as she got up and headed to go sit by Suyeon. "So your winning streak continues?" 

Suyeon nodded. "Three more games."

Yoojung was frantically shuffling the cards. "One more game," she said. "I know I'll get lucky next time!"

Suyeon shook her head. "Next time will have to wait. Right now it's time for you to start cooking dinner.

"Ooh! Are we having the pork belly tonight?" Sei asked excitedly.

Yoojung nodded. "All I've got to do is fix the banchan and the condiments, then cut the pork belly into pieces and warm up the grill, and we'll all be eating within half an hour.

* * *

Half an hour ended up being more like 45 minutes. Yoojung cut her finger while slicing some garlic. It wasn't a bad cut, but she had to stop and put a Band-Aid on, then wash the knife and cutting board, then start over with some garlic that she hadn't bled on. Soon, though, she was able to call everyone to dinner.

When they all came in, they noticed that Lucy wasn't there. "I'll go get her," Rina said, jumping up and running off.

"Tell her to hurry up or I'll eat her share of the pork belly!" Yoojung said.

Whether Rina actually passed on Yoojung's threat or not, she and Lucy were back in the kitchen before Yoojung had all the pork belly laid out on the grill.

As soon as the first pieces of pork belly finished cooking, the girls began snatching them off the grill with their chopsticks, wrapping them in lettuce and perilla leaves, topping them with whatever sauces or vegetables they preferred, and gobbling them up. During a lull while they waited for more pork belly to cook, Lua happened to glance across the table at Sei. "Sei, you should let me cut your hair tonight. Your bangs are getting so long they're falling in your eyes," she said.

Sei reached up and swept her bangs to the side, a motion she made so many times a day that it was becoming automatic. "Okay, but just take a little bit off - I don't want to have the choppy bangs again."

"But you were so cute with the choppy bangs!" Doyeon said with a laugh, lifting Sei's bangs until they approximated her short bangs from the "La La La" era.

"I think Sei looks better with longer bangs," Lucy said as she popped another piece of pork belly in her mouth and started chewing.

This initiated a discussion of which hairstyle she'd had in the past had been most flattering on Sei and what hairstyle and color Sei should have next. This conversation was still going on when dinner ended and everyone started to get up and scatter to various parts of the apartment. Lucy gathered up all the plates and started on the dishes while Yoojung packed up the leftover vegetables - there was no leftover pork belly - and put them in the fridge.

"Go wait for me in the bathroom," Lua said to Sei. "I'll go get my scissors and then I'll trim your bangs."

"Just a little," Sei reminded her.

"Right," Lua said as she headed for their bedroom.

As Sei stood in the bathroom waiting for Lua, she found herself wishing once again that she could be public about her relationship with Suyeon. Helping Lucy deal with her emotions that afternoon had left her feeling like an exposed nerve. Everything seemed to affect her more than it should have, and she really needed someone to hold her close and tell her everything would be okay.

"Okay, let's get started!" Lua said as she bounced into the bathroom. Sei started slightly in surprise.

As Lua trimmed Sei's bangs, Sei told her about the conversation she had had with Lucy that afternoon. When she got to the description of Lucy's first kiss, Lua stopped cutting and just stared at her. After a moment of this, seeing the stunned expression on Lua's face, she asked "What?"

Shaking her head, Lua quickly closed and locked the bathroom door. "Sei, are you dense?" she asked, her voice intense. "She was describing you! Lucy basically came straight out and said she wants her first kiss to be with you!"

Sei shook her head. "No! That's ridiculous! Lucy could have practically any girl she wants. Everybody knows that Elly-unnie is literally counting the days until Lucy turns 18!"

"It sounds like Lucy doesn't want Elly-unnie, and she doesn't want to wait until she turns 18!" Lua trimmed the last of Sei's bangs with a few frustrated snips, miraculously managing to keep them straight. "Sei, I'm telling you, Lucy wants to be with you. If you don't go for it, you're a fool!"

"But-" Sei began, uncertain of what she was about to say next.

"But nothing!" Lua cut her off. "Look, you're not dating anyone, she's not dating anyone, she wants to be with you, we're stuck in the apartment for who knows how long anyway." Sei opened her mouth to say something. "No.There's nothing for you to say here. You were about to say something about Suyeon, and I'm just gonna stop you before you say something stupid. You've had this crush on Suyeon for way too long. It's. Never. Gonna. Happen. So do yourself a favor and give Lucy what she wants! You two would make such a cute couple!"

"But you were-" Sei started to protest.

"Yes, I was interested in Lucy," Lua said, "but obviously she doesn't feel the same way about me, otherwise she would have described her first kiss as being with me." Lua put her hands on Sei's shoulders and leaned in close to Sei's face. "Look, all I want right now is for you and Lucy to be happy. There's nothing to keep you two apart except you. If you screw this up, I will. . ."

Whatever Lua was going to do was interrupted by a knock at the bathroom door. "Are you two almost done in there?" Elly called through the door.

"Remember what I said," Lua whispered to Sei, as she unlocked the door and let them out of the bathroom. 


	3. Mahjong and suntanning

Sei lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She wanted to be asleep, but sleep wouldn't come. She rolled over at look at the clock - 2:27.

"Okay," she said to herself, "we've now officially transitioned from late at night to early morning. I'm going to go have a cup of tea." 

She got up and, moving quietly so as not to awaken her roommates, made her way to the kitchen. While waiting for the water to boil, she pondered what Lua had said to her about Lucy. It certainly did sound like Lucy wanted Sei to be her first kiss. And of course Lua didn't see any obstacle to this, because Sei and Suyeon had been so careful to hide their relationship.

Sei was startled out of her reverie by the whistling of the kettle. Moving quickly, before the noise had time to wake anybody up, she took the kettle off the stove and fixed herself a cup of tea. She went into the living room and sat staring out the window, drinking her tea and pondering the stiuation she found herself in. She was still sitting there, her half-drunk cup of tea having long since gotten cold, when the sun came up. She stood up and stretched. 

"Well," she said to herself, "I suppose it's a day." She put her teacup in the sink, then went to get dressed. Eventually, if this went on for long enough, they'd reach the point where they'd all sit around in their pajamas all day, but for now she tried to keep some degree of normalcy. Looking through the window and seeing the buds on the trees had brought home to Sei that it was spring. She selected a pink floral babydoll dress for the day.

Once she was dressed, she brushed her teeth and put on her makeup. "Lua can be #nomakeup," she thought, "but I'm not there yet." Looking at herself in the mirror, she decided to do something with her hair. After a few minutes of experimenting, she finally settled on pigtails. Feeling pleased with herself, she went to the kitchen to get breakfast and wait for the food delivery.

When she got to the kitchen, she found Elly there, drinking tea and eating a bowl of rice.

"Good morning unnnie," Sei said. "I didn't hear you wake up."

"I was trying to be extra-quiet so I didn't wake up Suyeon," Elly said. "She was tossing and turning all night. She finally fell asleep about an hour ago. Elly happened to look up then and notice what Sei was wearing. "What are you dressed up for?" she asked. "Got big plans for the day?"

Sei laughed. "No," she said, "I just wanted to feel good today and this is the outfit that I came up with."

"You look cute," Elly said with a smile.

"Thank you unnie." Sei blushed. She turned on the kettle to fix herself a new cup of tea, then started peeling a tangerine while she waited. 

Elly finished her breakfast just as the kettle was coming to a boil. "See you later," she said. "I'm going to go watch a movie."

"Okay," Sei said as she poured water over her tea bag. "If I can get two other people interested, you want to play mahjong later today?"

Elly shook her head. "Not today. But I'm sure we'll have plenty of chances for mahjong before all this is over. I hope you find three people," she said as she turned and headed into the living room.

Rina came into the kitchen just as Elly was leaving. "Three people for what?" she asked.

"Mahjong," Sei said around a mouthful of tangerine.

"I'll play," Rina said, "so long as you don't mind that I'm not very good at it yet."

Sei took a sip of her tea. "That'll be fine," she said. "The only way you'll get better is by playing."

Rian served herself a bowl of rice from the rice cooker, then added some leftover vegetables from the previous night's dinner. She grabbed a pair of chopsticks, sat down and started eating. "Has the grocery delivery come yet?" she asked between bites.

Sei shook her head. "No yet. It'll probably be here any minute." As if summoned by Sei's words, there was a knock on the door. After giving a slow count of ten, Sei went out and brought in the bags of groceries. Rina watched with interest as she unpacked things.

"Any surprises today?" Rina asked.

"Not so far," Sei said, as she unpacked a bag of kiwis into a bowl. "We've got some really nice fruit, though. And sweet potatoes for dinner. And they found your shampoo!"

"Yay!" Rina jumped up and snatched the bottle of shampoo out of Sei's hand. "I've needed this so badly," she said, stroking the bottle affectionately. "I was almost desperate enough to borrow some shampoo from somebody." Leaving her breakfast dishes on the table, she rushed off to shower.

Once she had finished unpacking the groceries and putting them away, Sei went back to her room and, for lack of anything better to do, started in on the personality test she'd half-finished the day before. Once she answered the last question, she counted up her score and turned the page to see what the test said about her. As she read the paragraph, her brow scrunched up in annoyance. "That's not right," she said. "I'm very conscientious, and I can keep a secret." She turned back to the previous page and started adjusting her answers until she got the result she wanted. As she finished, she looked up to see Lua watching her with amusement.

"You know those things are fake, don't you?" Lua asked with a grin.

"No," Sei protested, "they've got people who specialize in designing these tests so they're accurate. But of course you wouldn't believe in it - you're a blood type A."

Lua rolled her eyes. "You know I don't believe in the blood typing, or astrology, or any of those sorts of things."

"Of course not," Sei said. "You're a Libra!" She stuck her tongue out at Lua and went back to her magazine. 

Sei woke up - she had apparently fallen asleep while reading. She did some stretched to get rid of the crick in her neck from sleeping in a hunched over position. From outside her room, she heard the others moving around. Checking her clock, she saw that it was 10:30. "Maybe now I can find two other people for mahjong," she thought to herself.

When she walked into the living room, she almost tripped on an extension cord.

"Be careful, unnie!" Lucy said, as she re-arranged a desk lamp that had almost fallen off the end table. 

Sei saw that Lucy had assembed four different lamps on the end table and was working on getting them all plugged in.

"Oh, unnie, can I borrow your lamp?" Lucy asked, once she had the four lamps on the table arranged to her satisfaction.

"Uh. . . sure, I'll go get it." Sei was not at all clear on what Lucy needed another lamp for.

"No, need. I've got it!" Lucy said, as she dashed past Sei and grabbed light from her bedside table.

"What do you need all these lamps for?" Sei asked, as Lucy rushed past her back to the end table.

"You'll see in just a minute!" Lucy said. She turned on the lamps, then turned on a space heater that she had positioned under the end table. "Be right back!" And with that, Lucy hurried off into her room.

Sei looked around. No one else seemed to be paying any attention to the maknae's eccentric actions, so either they already knew or else they just didn't care. She did see that Suyeon and Yoojung were playing go stop again. She called across the room "Suyeon! After you finish that game, do you and Yoojung want to play mahjong with Rina and me?"

Suyeon looked across at Yoojung, who nodded, then called back "Sure. We'll be a few minutes."

"That's fine," Sei responded. "I'm watching to see what Lucy's up to.

Suyeon looked across at the congregation of desk lamps, shrugged, and went back to her game.

Just then Lucy came out of her room, wearing a swimsuit and carrying a towel and a tube of lotion. "I'm going to the beach today," she said to Sei as she passed. She unfolded the towel and laid it down in the bright spot created by the desk lamps, then reclined on it and reached up toward Sei with the tube of lotion. "Put some sunscreen on me so I don't burn?"

Sei was charmed by Lucy's imagination at work and only too happy to play along. "Sure!" she said, kneeling down next to Lucy. She took the tube of lotion, squirted some into her hand, then rubbed her hands together to warm it up. First she applied lotion to Lucy's face, neck, and upper chest, then to her arms. Then she had Lucy lie down and she started applying lotion to her legs. It occurred to her that outside of choreography, she'd never touched Suyeon's legs. The physical component of their relationship had been confined to kisses that were both too infrequent and too brief. Sei finished by applying lotion to Lucy's feet, which apparently tickled, and just as she finished, she heard Suyeon call for her. "Sei, we're ready for mahjong."

"Be there in just a second!" Sei called back. She laid the tube of lotion down next to Lucy. "See you later!"

Lucy sat up. "Thank you unnie," she said, flashing Sei a dazzling smile. "If you have time after your mahjong game, you can come hang out on the beach with me, if you want."

Sei smiled. "I might just do that," she said, "depending on how long the game goes on, and whether anyone's up for a second round." She looked over at the table where Rina, Yoojung, and Suyeon were getting set up, then back at Lucy. "You should learn to play mahjong," she suggested.

Lucy shook her head. "Ellie-unnie tried teaching it to me once, and I just couldn't get it."

"Maybe you just need it explained in a different way," Sei said. "If you're interested, I'd be happy to try." The more members who knew how to play mahjong, the greater her chances of being able to assemble a foursome at any time.

"I'll think about it," Lucy said. She laid back, put on her sunglasses, and basked in the light of the desk lamps and the heat of the space heater.

"Well, I've got to go - they're waiting on me," Sei said. "Enjoy your time at the beach!" She got up and moving carefully so as not to trip on the wires, made her way to the table, where Rina, Suyeon, and Yoojung were waiting for her.

"Did you ever find out what Lucy's up to?" Suyeon asked.

Sei nodded. "She's made herself a beach over there, with desk lamps to provide bright light and the heater to provide warmth."

Rina scoffed. "She's so immature." Rina was always quick to censure Lucy for anything even hinting at immaturity, for fear that any immaturity on Lucy's part would cause people to think she was immature as well, since they were roommates.

"I think it's clever," Sei said. "We're going to be stuck in here for who know how long. We'll need to come up with ways of keeping ourselves entertained."

Rina sniffed, not entirely convinced.

"Okay, let's get started," Suyeon said, hoping to head off an argument. She rolled the dice to see if she would go first, then passed the dice to Rina. After they had determined who would go first, they sat down, started building the walls, and the game got underway.

After about half an hour, they heard Lucy call from across the room "Sei-unnie! I'm about to flip over! Come put sunscreen on my back?"

Rina rolled her eyes.

"It won't take long," Sei said, as she got up from the table. She walked over to the edge of the room, where Lucy was lying on her stomach in the bright lights. She knelt down next to her and started applying lotion, starting at the back of her neck and working her way down. "Nothing makes you realize how long Lucy's leg's are as having to put lotion on them," Sei thought. When she was finished, she put the lotion down and said "Okay! All done!"

Lucy rolled partway over and smiled at her. "Thanks unnie!"

When Sei got back to the table, the atmosphere of the game had changed - apparently Suyeon and Rina had argued about Rina's reaction to Lucy's beach game.

"Okay, Sei's back," Yoojung said with forced cheerfulness. "Let's get the game going again."

After a few turns around the table, Rina and Suyeon seemed to lighten up, their earlier quarrel apparently forgotten.

As usual, no one was able to beat Suyeon - her mathematical genius seemed to transfer over to games - but Rina came really close. 

"I don't think we've got time for another game before dinner," Suyeon said, checking the time on her phone. She started to put the tiles back in their case.

"No, wait," Rina said, reaching out to stop Suyeon. "I want to play mahjong solitaire until dinner."

"Okay," Suyeon said, "but that means you'll have to pick up the tiles by yourself."

Rina nodded. "That's fine." She started mixing up the tiles and putting them into a solitaire layout.

Sei went over to the members by the TV. There was space in the couch next to Lua, so she sat there. "What's on?" she asked.

"Best Chicken," said Doyeon. "Remember Kim So-Hye from I.O.I? She starred in it!"

Sei looked at the screen. "I think I recognize her. Remember, I got eliminated long before I.O.I was formed, so I don't know everyone as well."

Lua checked the time on her phone. "Sei, come talk with me a second," she said. "You can watch this from the beginning another day, if you want. It's not like we're going anywhere."

Once Sei and Lua were in their room, Lua shut the door behind them, then led Sei over to sit on her bed, which was the furthest from the door. "Do you realize what's going on?" Lua asked.

"What's going on where?" Sei asked, waving her hands around to show how vague Lua's questions was. "With what? Who? Can you be a little more specific?" 

"With Lucy!" Lua whispered, grabbing Sei by the shoulder and pulling her down until their heads were almost touching. "You think it's a coincidence that she asked you to put lotion on her both times today? I was sitting right by her when she flipped over, and she called you out of a game of mahjong and risked pissing Rina off rather than ask me."

Sei sat, blinking, trying to figure out the significance of what Lua was telling her. 

"The girl is way into you," Lua said. "You've got to make a move on her. Preferably before dinner. Be brave! Go for it!"

"I can't do it before dinner," Sei protested. "I. . . I just. . . I've got to go talk to Suyeon." She got up and ran out of the bedroom.


	4. The World Turned Upside Down

Sei found Suyeon lying on her bed, goofing around on her phone. 

"We need to talk," Sei said.

Suyeon looked at Sei, then over at Elly.

"We can go to my room." Sei said.

Suyeon put her phone in her pocket and got up. "Okay, let's go."

Sei led Suyeon to her room. When they got there, Lua was just leaving.

"Remember what I said," she said to Sei.

Sei nodded, led Suyeon into the room, and shut the door.

Suyeon looked concernedly at Sei. "What's wrong?" she asked. "You're obviously upset about something."

Sei nodded. "I am. I'm really upset and I'm going to say something that I should have said a long time ago." She paused.

After the pause had stretched out an uncomfortably long time, Suyeon prompted her. "And that is?"

Sei took a deep breath, blinked a couple of times, and began. "Suyeon, you're going to have to choose. I can't be your dirty little secret anymore. I won't be. I deserve better than that. Either we're a real couple and we let the other members know about us, or we're through."

Suyeon was quiet for a moment, taken aback. "Oh. . . um. . . yes. . . Can I have some time to think about it?"

Sei shook her head violently, tears welling up in your eyes. "No, Suyeon. You can't. You've had months and months to think about it. You knew I was unhappy about the situation. We've had the same conversation about it so many damn times. So no, you can't have any more time. I need your decision right now: Either we walk out that door together and tell the other members that we're a couple, or you walk out alone and you never have to tell them anything."

Suyeon took a step forward. "Sei, I've told you why we can't tell the other members about us. Maybe someday, but not now-"

Sei's eyes flashed. "So that's your answer? Either we're a secret or we're through?"

Suyeon's brow creased and she started talking slightly louder. "Look, I never lied to you. I told you at the beginning that I would always, always put Weki Meki first. You knew what you were getting into when we got together."

Sei shook her head. "No, I didn't know. I didn't know how far you would take that. I didn't know that I'd only get to be your girlfriend for a couple of minutes a day, at best. I can't live like that, Suyeon. No one could!"

"But, maybe in a while, when the time is right-"

Sei shook her head again. "Suyeon, I don't believe that the time will ever be right." She blinked back the tears that were threatening to overflow her eyes. "Just go, Suyeon. I know what your answer is. I'm not going to force you to say the words.

Suyeon crossed her arms. "I'm sorry, Sei. I really am. I just don't know any other way to be."

Sei nodded. "I know. And we did have some good times, but not enough of them. Not enough to make up for all the times I needed a hug and I couldn't come to you. All the times I wanted to cuddle up to you while we were watching a movie but I couldn't-"

"Sei I love-" Suyeon began.

"I believe you love me Suyeon. But apparently you can't love me in the way I need to be loved. I just-"

From outside the room they heard Doyeon calling "Dinner's ready!"

Sei slumped over and sat down on the edge of her bed, sniffling back tears. "Just go, Suyeon. I'm not hungry, and I don't want to fight. . . Just go." She flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Suyeon opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but couldn't find any words. Nodding silently, she turned and left. As she shut the bedroom door, she heard Sei roll over and start to cry in earnest.

* * *

Doyeon quietly opened the door and slipped into the room she share with Yoojung, Sei, and Lua.

"Hey Sei," she called out. "I know Suyeon said you're not hungry, but I made street toast for dinner and I'd already made you one, so I figured I'd come see if you wanted it."

Sei rolled over and looked at Doyeon. Upon seeing her face, Doyeon gasped, then rushed over and sat on the edge of Sei's bed. Tentatively reaching out, she stroked Sei's hair.

"You've been crying." It wasn't a question. "What's wrong?"

Sei sat up so she could talk to Doyeon more easily. "Suyeon and I got in an argument," she said. "I can't really talk about why, but things are going to be awkward for a while and then hopefully they'll be better." She reached out for the plate. "I was actually starving, but I couldn't go out and sit with everyone."

Doyeon handed Sei the plate and watched while she took a bite. "I understand that. Tell you what, you go ahead and eat here - try not to get crumbs all over the place - and the leave your plate on your table and I'll come get it before I go to bed."

Sei reached out and took Doyeon's hand. "Can you stay here with me for a little while, unnie?"

Doyeon nodded. "Sure. Let me just go tell Yoojung what's going on so she doesn't come looking for me." She got up and left, leaving Sei alone with her thoughts and her sandwich.

When Doyeon came back, she sat on her bed and looked across at Sei. "So, did you want to talk, or did you just want not to be alone?"

Sei chewed and swallowed the bite of sandwich that was in her mouth. "Unnie, can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," Doyeon said. Seeing that Sei didn't even crack a smile, she hurriedly composed her face into a serious expression. "OK, not the time for humor. What did you want to ask?"

Sei thought for a moment, then asked "How did you and Yoojung get together? How did you know she was interested in you? And did you ask her to be your girlfriend, or did she ask you, or what? And. . ."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Doyeon said with a grin, holding up her hands to stop Sei. "That's a lot of questions. Let me answer those before you ask more. Yoojung and I met during the Produce 101. As time went on, we found ourselves spending more and more time together outside of practice. After a while, I noticed that she seemed to be seeking me out. Like, we weren't allowed to go anywhere without a buddy, and she'd be sitting with a group of people and rather than ask one of them to be her buddy so she could go somewhere, she'd come ask me. And for a long time I wasn't sure if she was interested in me as a girlfriend or if she just really wanted to be my friend, so after a while I just asked her."

Sei stopped with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. "How did you do that? What did you say?" She took a bite and chewed as she awaited Doyeon's reply.

"Just one day while we were talking I said 'There's something I've been wondering about. . .' and then I just asked her."

"Just like that?"

Doyeon nodded. "Just like that."

Sei took the last bite of the sandwich and put her plate down on her table. "Weren't you scared? I mean, what if she had said no?"

Doyeon laughed. "Scared? I was terrified! What if I misunderstood her? What if my gaydar was off and she wasn't really into girls that way? What if I messed up our friendship by asking this? It was nerve-wracking!" Doyeon fell silent for a moment, then quietly asked. "Is there someone you need to ask that question of?"

Sei nodded. "Yes. I mean, I think so. I mean. . ." She flopped down on her bed. "I don't know. Why can't things be easy?"

Doyeon laughed quietly. "All you've got to do is ask one question and then listen for the answer. How much easier can it be?" She paused and thought for a moment. "Does this have something to do with your fight with Suyeon? Are you thinking Suyeon might be into you?"

Sei shook her head no, while at the same time saying "Yes." Seeing the confusion on Doyeon's face, she elaborated. "It does, kinda sorta, in a way, have something to do with my fight with Suyeon, but I don't think Suyeon's into me. Suyeon's pretty much married to Weki Meki - I don't know that she has room in her life for a relationship."

Doyeon nodded. "Yeah, 'cause I was about to say, if you're interested in Suyeon, you're wasting your time." She stood up and picked up Sei's plate. "Well, I think I've given you enough to think about for a while. If you've got more questions, feel free to come ask me - it's not like I can go anywhere."

* * *

As usual, Sei woke up early, as usual. Normally she would have gone running, but currently that wasn't an option. Still, she didn't feel like staying in bed, so she quietly got up and headed for the kitchen. On the way, she saw Suyeon sitting on the couch in the common room. She walked over and stood by the end of the couch.

"You're already up?" Sei asked.

Suyeon shook her head. "Still up. I couldn't sleep. Wanna keep me company?"

Sei sat down on the couch next to Suyeon. They were both quiet for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. Finally, Suyeon was the one to break the silence.

"So how are you doing?" 

Sei looked at her. "I haven't done anything but cry and sleep since we last talked, so that should tell you."

Suyeon nodded. "I haven't been able to do either of those. At first I thought I just wasn't crying because the other members were around, but then they all went to sleep and I could have cried without anyone knowing and the tears just wouldn't come." She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sad about what happened with us, but the crying's just not happening."

Sei reached out and touch Suyeon on the shoulder. "Everybody deals with things differently," she said. "Maybe you'll cry later. Or maybe you never will - I can't recall ever seeing you cry."

Suyeon laughed. "This's not true - I cried like a baby when I broke my ankle."

Sei shook her head. "No, that's not the same. A pain cry is different from a sadness cry." She looked out the window for a minute. "Or maybe you'll cry the first time you see me with someone else."

There was a long silence. Finally, Suyeon asked "Is there someone else?"

Sei leaned back and sighed. "I didn't break up with you so that I could go out with someone else, if that's what you're asking, and I never did cheat on you, but at the same time, there's someone who might be interested in me, and something might come of that. I just. . ." She took a deep breath and started over again. "I just don't want you thinking I broke up with you just to be with them, and I don't want you hassling them if you see us together."'

"I'd never do that," Suyeon said quickly.

"I didn't think you would," Sei replied, still looking back, "but I just wanted to give you a heads up of what might be happening."

Suyeon pondered this, then quietly asked. "Did you love me?"

Sei looked and Suyeon and lean toward her. "Did I? I still do. I imagine I always will. Just because we can't be together doesn't mean I've stopped loving you."

Suyeon nodded. "I still love you too."

"But love's not enough," Sei said seriously. "We had problems that no amount of love was going to overcome."

'You're right. You really are," Suyeon said. "But part of me just didn't - still doesn't - want to admit it. I think I'm just afraid of being alone."

'Being alone isn't the worst thing," Sei said. "Besides, I believe there's someone out there for you, someone who makes you happier than I ever could."

Suyeon slumped back. "Not that I can meet them right now, while we're quarantined in our apartment."

"Well, no, probably not," Sei admitted. "But we won't stay in quarantine forever, and when you find your person, I'll be so happy for you."

Suyeon stared at her hands. "It's all just a lot to take in. And you know what's the weirdest part?"

"What?"

"I'm not even mad at you." Suyeon looked up, making eye contact with Sei, then looked away again quickly. "I've never stayed friends with one of my exes before, but things feel different with you."

"Well, I hope we're able to stay friends - we're still going to be in Weki Meki together!" Sei laughed quietly.

Suyeon nodded, obviously thinking this over deeply. After a while, she asked "So, this other person that you might end up going out with. . . Do I know them?"

Sei considered this question for a moment. "You do, but I'm not going to tell you who it is, so please don't try to guess. Or if you do try to guess, keep your guesses to yourself."

Just then there was a knock at the door. Sei and Suyeon counted to ten as they made their way to the door.

"At least they're feeding us well while we're quarantined," Suyeon said, as they picked up the bags of groceries and brought them inside.

"That's true," said Sei as she put a couple of 6-packs of ramen into the pantry.

"And apparently Manager-nim decided we should start getting the newspaper," Suyeon said, holding up the day's Chosun Ilbo.

"I guess she wanted to be sure we were keeping up with what's going on outside of this apartment," Sei said and she unpacked a stack of cans of tuna.

"That's a good idea," Suyeon said. "Today's only the third day of quarantine and I feel like we've been in here forever."

Sei nodded. "I know what you mean. How about you sit down and read the news out loud and I'll finish putting away the groceries."

Sei was just putting away the last of the groceries and Suyeon was reaching the end of an article about the pandemic when Rina came into the kitchen.

"Good morning unnies!" she said with a smile. "Did we get any tuna in the groceries today?"

Sei nodded and pointed to the stacks of cans in the pantry. "We got regular and with hot sauce."

"Great!" Rina exclaimed as skipped over to the pantry. "I've been craving tuna!" She served herself a bowl of rice from the rice cooker, then dumped a can of tuna with hot sauce on top of it.

Suyeon shook her head. "I never did understand how you could eat tuna for breakfast."

"Why wouldn't you eat tuna for breakast?" Rina asked between bites. "It tastes delicious, plus it's got protein, so you don't crash when your bodye has burned up all the carbs from the rice."

Sei laughed. "Sounds like someone's been listening to me to talk about food!" 

"Of course I do!" Rina said with a blush. "You put so much effort into learning how to eat healthily - why wouldn't I listen to you?"

"Some of our members," Sei said, "seem to have no interest in eating more healthily."

Rina shrugged. "Just because Lucy would like on nothing but tteokbokki and instant noodles if you let her doesn't mean all of us are like that."

Sei quickly glanced over at Suyeon, then looked back at Rina. Why did Rina bring up Lucy? Was it just an innocent bit of complication, or did she intend something more? Before she had a chance to answer, Suyeon spoke up.

"That tuna and rice smells good," she said. "Can I try a bite?"

Rina laughed. "I thought you couldn't understand how I can eat tuna for breakast?" She held out her bowl toward Suyeon.

"I can't!" Suyeon said as she went to get a spoon. "But it smells so good I want to try it. Besides, I didn't sleep last night, so my body doesn't really know it's breakfast." She took a spoonful of the tuna and right and tentatively tasted it.

Rina watched her face for any reaction. "Well? What do you think?"

"I think I want a bowl of that!" Suyeon said. As she headed to the pantry for a can of tuna, Sei put the kettle on to make tea.


	5. Learning How

Sei sat in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and writing in her journal. Suyeon had finally gone to bed. Rina had finished her breakfast and gone to wake up Lua. Doyeon and Yoojung were sitting on the couch watching reruns of beach volleyball from the 2016 Olympics. The only members she hadn't seen were Lucy and Elly. Just then Lucy came into the kitchen.

"Good morning unnie!" Lucy said brightly as she picked up a tangerine and went to the fridge for a bottle of yogurt.

Sei finished the sentence she was writing, then closed her journal. "Good morning!" she said, turning to face Lucy. Noticing what Lucy had in her hands, she said "That looks like a healthy breakfast!"

Lucy smiled as she started peeling the tangerine. "It's because of the quarantine," she said. Seeing that Sei looked puzzle, she elaborated. "Normally, if I didn't eat the healthiest diet, it didn't matter, because I was getting lots and lots of exercise. Now I can't get so much exercise, so I've got to be careful what I eat. I don't want for the quarantine to end and then when Manager-nim sees us again to have her say 'Jeez, Lucy! You look like a blimp! Nothing but sweet potatoes for you, until you're down to your proper size."

Sei laughed at Lucy's impression of their manager. "She'd sound exactly like that! She-"

Just then Elly came out of her room. "Good morning everyone!" she called out. "Suyeon's asleep, so she asked me to answer this text from Manager-nim: Are any of you feeling sick?"

"I'm sick of being in this apartment, but that's about it," Doyeon said with a laugh. 

"I'd say that's a no, then," Elly said with a laugh. "Any of the rest of you? What about Suyeon? Why's she sleeping so late? Does Manager-nim need to take her to a doctor?" 

"Oh, no," Sei called out. "She stayed up all night. She didn't get to sleep until after the food had come this morning."

"And she didn't seem sick when you got up?"

Sei shook her head. "Not sick at all."

'Okay," Elly said. "You'd better be right."

After Elly had gone back into her room and shut the door behind her, Lucy murmured "Yeah, she probably wished Suyeon would get sick, so that she'd get to be the leader."

Sei nodded in agreement and quietly said "I know. I just don't get it - being the leader wouldn't even give her that much power."

Lucy shook her head. "It's not about the amount of power. It's about having it or not. Don't you remember when we were - no, wait - you weren't a trainee with us!"

"No, I was at LOUDers when I was a trainee."

"So you wouldn't have seen it," Lucy said, gathering up all the piece of tangerine peel and wrapping them in a napkin. "When we were trainees, if there was any distinction to be had, however small, Elly would move heaven and earth to get it. For something as little as 'whoever knows the choreography the best by Friday afternoon gets to be first in line for dinner Friday night,' Elly would spend every spare minute practicing, to try to be sure that she was the one who got recognized."

"Why's she like that?" Sei asked.

Lucy shrugged. "Some people are just wired differently. And she never seems to have gotten the memo that she doesn't need to compete with us, because she's still competing. Why do you think she insisted we had to divide up the rooms based on age? That way, at least if she couldn't be the leader, she could be the leader's roommate."

Sei shook her head. "I just don't get it."

Lucy got up, threw away her tangerine peels, and recycled her yogurt bottle. "It's just how she is. You just have to learn to work around it."

Sei was looking at the kettle, trying to decide if she wanted another cup of tea. "Do you want to give mahjong a shot this morning?" she asked Lucy.

Lucy thought for a moment. "I promised Rina I'd do yoga with her later, but that's not for a couple of hours yet, so sure. Can you make me a cup of tea when you make yours?"

"Sure thing." Sei got another cup down from the cabinet. "I'm going to have blueberry green tea. Does that work for you?"

"Sure!" Lucy said, not even bothering to think about it. "I'll go get the mahjong set and we can get started."

Once Lucy got back with the mahjong set, Sei showed her how to start a game of mahjong, then they started a game. Since there were just two of them, and since Sei wanted Lucy to learn how to play as quickly as possible, they moved around the table, taking each player's turn. After a couple of hours of this, they'd played several games and Lucy understood the basics and was starting to be able to think strategically. Around this time Rina poked her head into the kitchen and asked "Lucy, are you ready to do yoga now?"

Lucy looked from Rina to Sei and then back again. "Already? Oh. . . uh. . ."

"Go ahead," Sei said, "you told Rina you'd do yoga with her, and after a couple of hours of mahjong, your brain's got to be getting sore. Go on, and I'll clean up here."

"Okay!" Lucy reached out and squeezed Sei's hand. "Thanks unnie!"

Sei sat at the table, gathering up the mahjong tiles to put them away. They whole time, she would swear she could still feel the warmth of Lucy's hand on hers

* * *

Late in the afternoon, Sei was sitting on the couch with Doyeon and Yoojung when Suyeon finally got up and came staggering out into the common room.

"Good morning!" Sei said.

"You feeling better after getting some sleep?" Yoojung asked.

"I am. Much better." If Doyeon or Yoojung noticed that Suyeon looked at Sei when she said this, neither of them said anything about it. Sei just nodded and let the conversation go on.

Suyeon sat down in one of the chairs. "What's for dinner? Whose turn is it to cook?" she asked.

"Lucy's cooking tonight," Yoojung said. "She's making kimchi spaghetti."

"Kimchi spaghetti?" Suyeon asked. She looked intrigued but at the same time vaguely repulsed by the idea.

'It's a recipe she found online. Spaghetti, topped with a sauce made with bacon, onions, mushrooms, kimchi, and gochujang," Sei said.

Suyeon took this in and tried to imagine what it would taste like. "It could be good," she said, "and if it's not, we've got plenty of instant noodles."

"I'm proud of Lucy for trying something new," Yoojung said. "We're going to need a lot of that if we're not going to go stir-crazy before quarantine is over."

"Speaking of trying new things," Sei said, "I taught Lucy how to play mahjong this morning, so we've got another person available for that."

"How'd you pull that off?" Suyeon asked, leaning forward excitedly. "I tried teaching her, but she said she just couldn't wrap her brain around the math."

"I didn't try teaching her the math," Sei said. "I just taught her the basic rules and we went from there straight to examples of play."

"And that worked?"

Sei nodded excitedly. "It took a couple of hours, but she's almost as good as Rina now."

Elly came out of her room just in time to hear the last of this. "Who's almost as good as Rina?" she asked.

Suyeon looked up at her. "Lucy. At playing mahjong."

Elly nodded. "That's good. The more people we have who can play, the more variety we'll have."

"In the next grocery delivery, I asked for a deck of western playing cards," Doyeon said, "so that will give us some more options of things to do."

Just then, Lucy passed through on her way to the kitchen.

"Hey Lucy!" Sei called out. "You need any help?"

Lucy stopped and looked over at her. "I don't think I'll need any help, but I wouldn't say no to some company."

Sei got up and followed Lucy into the kitchen. "See you later, unnies" she called back over her shoulder as she left the room.

* * *

Just before Sei drifted off to sleep, she heard Doyeon quietly calling her name. She rolled over and saw Doyeon leaning out into the space between their beds so she could talk to Sei without disturbing Yoojung or Lua.

"So," Doyeon said, once Sei had rolled over and scooted closer to her, "Lucy?"

Sei nodded.

"Did you talk to her about it yet?" Doyeon asked.

Sei shook her head. "I was going to talk to her while she was cooking, but she was going on about what she was doing with the food and I didn't want to distract her."

"Well, thanks for that," Doyeon said. "I was kind of hesitant at first, but kimchi spaghetti is delicious! But anyway, when are you going to talk to her?"

"Probably tomorrow," Sei said. "We're stuck in the apartment all the time; it shouldn't be difficult to get a chance to talk to her."

Doyeon nodded. "Well, just let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Yoojung had apparently heard the end of this conversation, because she flopped down on Sei's bed and leaned into the conversation. "What does Sei need help with?" she asked.

Sei said "nothing" at the same time that Doyeon said "Lucy." 

Yoojung looked from one of them to the other and back again. "Okay. . . so what does Sei think she doesn't need help with about Lucy?" she asked.

"Sei's interested in Lucy," Doyeon said, "and she's pretty sure Lucy feels the same way about her. Now she's just got to get up the guts to say."

Yoojung looked over at Sei. "You can do this! But tell you what, I'm happy to help."

"I really don't think I need help," Sei said. "It's just a matter of getting a few minutes alone with her. . ."

"It's got to be more than that," Yoojung said. "You had her alone for two hours today while you were teaching her mahjong, and then for another half hour while she was fixing dinner. Tell you what: I'll talk to Lucy tomorrow, kind of set the groundwork for you."

Yoojung got up and climbed back into her bed just as Sei was saying "Thank you, but that's really not necessary. I don't think. . ." Once Sei realized Yoojung was no longer listening to her, she turned back to Doyeon. "Can you stop her?" she asked.

Doyeon nodded, then shook her head. "I don't know. I'll try. You know what Yoojung's like once she's gotten an idea into her head."

"Please stop her, Doyeon!" Sei pleaded. "I really want this to go right!"

Doyeon looked across at Yoojung, then back at Sei. "I'll try. But if you really want to be sure, you need to talk to Lucy before she does."

"Oh great," Sei said to herself as she flopped back onto her pillow. Nothing like a little time pressure on top of already being nervous." 


	6. Speaking up

Suyeon woke up with a start. A glance at her phone told her it was 3 in the morning, but she heard someone moving around the apartment. She quietly got up and went to investigate.

In the kitchen, she found Lucy, waiting for the kettle to boil for a cup of tea.

"Couldn't sleep?" Suyeon asked, stating the obvious.

Lucy nodded as she put a chamomile tea bag into a mug. "I'm hoping a cup of tea will help."

Suyeon grabbed a mug out of the cabinet and put it on the counter next to Lucy's. "That sounds like a good idea," she said as she dropped a teabag into it.

Lucy looked at her. "Really, unnie? I've never known you to have trouble sleeping."

Suyeon shrugged. "I figure once you finish telling me what's bothering you, I'll have been up for long enough that I'll need some help getting back to sleep."

"Oh, but unnie, you don't have to. . . " She shook her head. "There's nothing bothering me."

Suyeon nodded. "Uh-huh. And I'm the Queen of Sweden. So what's bothering you?"

Lucy poured tea into both their mugs, then took her mug to sit down on the couch. Suyeon followed along behind her, walking carefully so as not to spill hot water on herself.

"Now then," Suyeon said, once they were settled in on the couch. "Tell me about what's bothering you. And don't try saying it's nothing - I know you better than that."

"Well," Lucy said, before stopping to stir her tea. "It's like this. . . there's this girl that I like, but I'm not sure if she feels that same way about me, and I've tried to drop some hints to her, but either she's not getting the clues, or else she's getting them and she's not interested."

Suyeon nodded. She took a sip of her tea to buy herself a moment to think, then said "But. . . why is this keeping you up tonight? It's not like you're gonna see her again until we're out of quarantine. Why don't you wait, keep talking to this girl, and see where things are when quarantine ends?"

Lucy took a sip of her tea, looked around to be sure she and Suyeon were the only ones up, then leaned toward Suyeon and said quietly "But unnie, this girl is one of our members! If something was going to happen, this would be a perfect time for it to happen!"

Suyeon blinked, stunned by this unexpected revelation. "She's. . . I mean. . . She's one of. . ." She stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "She's one of our members?"

Lucy nodded.

Suyeon sat quietly for a moment, taking this in. "Well, I guess I don't need to ask if I know this girl." She laughed quietly. "Well. . . wow. . . um. . . I'm sure you've heard me say before what a bad idea it generally is to date someone inside your group."

Lucy nodded. "I know you say that, but then I see Doyeon and Yoojung and I ask 'why can't I have that?'"

Suyeon picked up her mug, downed half her tea in one gulp, then swirled the remainder around before putting the mug down again. She remembered Sei bringing up this example to her just the other day. "Doyeon and Yoojung are the exception. They never should have worked out as a couple. Hell, according to the usual patterns of the industry, they shouldn't even have been in the same group after I.O.I was disbanded. But you can't count on that happening twice."

"But it could happen," Lucy said, her eyes shining brightly. "It could! And we'd have Doyeon and Yoojung here to ask if we needed help."

Suyeon was shaking her head. "It could happen, but I don't think it's likely. I'd advise just leaving it alone. But since you're probably not going to listen to my advice, all I can say is be careful, know the odds, and know that I'm here for you if you get your heart broken."

Lucy leaned over and gave Suyeon a hug. "That's so sweet of you to say, unnie. And I know you say this is a bad idea, and you might be right but" - she sighed - "I can't stop thinking about her. I've just got to know if she feels the same way about me as I feel about her."

"Well," Suyeon said, "if she's not asking you, it sounds like the only option left is for you to ask her."

"Just ask her!" Lucy threw her hands up in the air. "As if it's that easy! As if I could just go up to her and say 'I really like you. I'd like you to be my girlfriend. How do you feel about that?'"

Suyeon nodded. "If she won't ask you, then that's exactly what you'll have to do. And if you can't do that, maybe you're not ready to have a girlfriend. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to bed and try to get some more sleep so I don't sleep as late today as I did yesterday."

Lucy was silent for a moment, wanting indignantly to argue with Suyeon's words, but not sure she should. Finally, she settled for waiting until Suyeon was passing back through the common room on her way to her bedroom and calling out "Thanks for listening, unnie!"

Suyeon stopped and smiled at her. "No problem. Just. . . be careful, and I'm here if you need me."

Lucy sat staring at Suyeon's door for several minutes after the door had closed, wondering if Suyeon was right. Finally, she picked up her mug and headed off to bed. "Only one way to find out," she said to herself as she went down the hall: I'll have to put on my big girl pants and ask."

* * *

Lua struggled to sit up with Rina sitting on the edge of her duvet. One of her roommates had apparently left the curtains ajar, because a stream of light was shining across the room and right into her eyes. Once she was no longer being blinded by the early morning sunshine, she sat up and looked at Rina.

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?" she asked

Rina nodded. "I think it's a good idea. It'll help us to pass the time while we're in quarantine, like a summer fling. And since you and I have already dated and broken up once, I can count on you to not try to cling to me after quarantine is over."

Lua nodded. "Well, okay, I can kind of see the reasoning there. But, you know, I'm not your only ex-girlfriend in this apartment. Why not Elly?"

Rina shook her head rapidly. "No way. That's could never work."

"But why-" Lua began.

"Because Elly never got over me," Rina said. "Not all the way. She'd take this as a first step in us getting back together. She'd never believe that all I'm looking for is some quarantine entertainment."

"'Some quarantine entertainment,'" Lua echoed sardonically. "Boy, you really know how to make a girl feel wanted!" 

Rina swatted at Lua's arm. "You know what I mean!" 

Lua laughed. "I know. I just couldn't resist teasing you about it." She sat silently, looking out the window for a moment. "I admit, I'm tempted to just say yes, but I also just woke up, so I know my mind's not working at its best yet." She looked at Lua. "Since we're not going anywhere anyway, I need to have some time to think about this. I just can't help feeling there's some side of this that I'm not seeing."

Rina nodded. "Sure - like you said, we're not going anywhere. And in the meantime, maybe this will help you make up your mind." She leaned forarward and kissed Lua gently on the lips, then again more firmly. Then as she felt Lua begin to respond, she wrapped her arms around her and kissed her some more, alternating between kissing her and nibbling on her lower lip. Finally, Lua pulled her head away.

"Okay, okay," she said with a smile, mock-struggling to free her arms, "you've made your case. But I still need some time to think about it."

"Still?" Rina released Lua and stood up from the bed. She looked down at Lua. "If you still need to think about it, maybe I'm losing my touch." 

As Rina turned and walked out of the bedroom, she heard Lua behind her murmur "Losing her touch? Not even a little bit!" A wicked smile crossed her face as she walked out of the room.

* * *

Lucy looked up from the picture she was drawing to see who was coming into her bedroom. Much to her surprise, it was Yoojung. Putting aside her pencil and sketchpad, she sat up and said "Hi unnie! What's up?"

Yoojung shut the door behind her and then came and sat down on the bed next to Lucy. "Nothing much. I was just coming to see how you were doing."

Lucy shrugged. "As well as can be expected. I mean, we're still quarantined, so it can't be that great."

Yoojung nodded. "I was thinking of trying to get a foursome together to play mahjong. Would you be interested?"

"Is Sei going to be playing?" The words were out before Lucy even had a chance to think about them.

Yoojung looked at Lucy. "Would it make a difference if she was?" She waited a second, and when Lucy didn't answer, started laughing and said "It would! You're blushing! Lucy's got a crush on Sei!"

Lucy buried her face in her hands, trying to hide her blushing. Yoojung reached out and stroked her hair. "It's okay if you do," Yoojung said, "and I can see why you would - Sei's cute! You two would be cute together!" 

Lucy looked up. "You think so?"

Yoojung nodded. She got up and peeked out the door to see if anyone was coming down the hall, then came back and sat next to Lucy again. "If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell that you heard it from me?"

Lucy nodded. "It's nothing bad, is it?"

Yoojung shook her head. "No, it's something good. At least, I think you'll think it's good - Sei's interested in you. She's just trying to get the nerve up to talk to you about it?"

"Really!" Lucy suddenly realized how loud she was, so she bent down next to Yoojung and asked in a whisper. "Really?"

Yoojung nodded. "Sei and Doyeon were talking about it yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if she talked to you about it before bedtime tonight."

Lucy smiled widely. "Should I go talk to her? Tell her how I feel?"

Yoojung thought for a moment. "You could. Or you could wait for her to come to you. Whichever feels right for you."

Lucy thought for a moment, her brow furrowed with concentration. "If she tried going to bed tonight without talking to me about it, then I'll talk to her. Until then, the ball's in her court. Oh, I'm so excited! I can't wait to hear what she says!"

"Sounds good," Yoojung said. She glanced at the door. "I'd better be going. Technically I'm not supposed to be talking to you about this."

Lucy nodded. "What about mahjong? We still on for that?"

"Sure - I'll ask Sei and Elly if they're interested."

"Sounds good," Lucy said. "I'll put up my drawing stuff and meet you down in the common room in a few minutes."

As Yoojung walked up the hall, she almost ran into Sei. Sei noticed where Yoojung was coming from and said "Oh, unnie! Please tell me you weren't where I think you were, having the conversation I asked Doyeon to try to keep you from having!"

Yoojung quietly sidled up closer to Sei. "I was actually going to ask Lucy if she was up for a game of mahjong, which she is, but during the course of that conversation, some things came up that I couldn't help having the other conversation."

"What 'things' would that be?" Sei asked, making air quotes with her hands.

"Well," Yoojung began, when I asked Lucy if she wanted to play mahjong, her first question was 'Will Sei be there?' and when I teased her about it, she blushed, and then - well, anyway, she's interested in you, and she's just waiting for you to make your move?"

Sei suddenly turned pale. "She is? And she is?" She grabbed Yoojung's hands. "Unnie! What do I do?"

Yoojung laughed. "What do you think, you silly girl! You go talk to her! And you hurry, because I want to play mahjong."

Sei nervously fanned herself with her hands. "Just talk to her? Just like that? Now? Really?"

Yoojung nodded, her face all serious. "Now. You can do this." She grabbed Sei by the shoulders, pointed her toward Lucy's room, and gave her a push to start her moving. When Sei turned back to look at her, Yoojung shooed her, saying "Go on!" 

Sei nodded, took a deep breath, and marched on, looking for all the world like a woman on the way to her own execution.


	7. Just starting out

Sei peeked into Lucy and Rina's room. Seeing that Lucy was alone, sitting on her bed putting away her drawing supplies, she knocked on the doorframe. "Hey! Got a second before we go play mahjong?"

Lucy turned around and smiled at Sei. "Sure! Come on in."

Sei came in and sat down on the edge of Lucy's bed.

"I've got something I want to ask you-" They started laughing as they both said it at once!

"You first,' Sei said.

Lucy shook her head. "Oh no, unnies go first." She clasped her hands in her lap and made a show of waiting for Sei to ask her question.

"Oh. . ." Sei hadn't expected this. "Okay. . ." She took a deep breath, paused for a moment to decide exactly how she wanted to ask it, and finally decided that the direct way was best: "I like you, like really like you, and I wanted to know if you'd be my girlfriend."

Lucy got a mischievous glint in her eyes. She smiled at Sei and she quietly said. "That wasn't a question. You said you wanted to ask me a question."

Sei blinked as she processed what Lucy had just said. Finally, she smiled, reached out and took Lucy's hands in her, and said "Lucy, will you be my girlfriend?"

Lucy threw her arms around Sei's neck and hugged her tightly. "Yes, of course I will, you silly girl! I've been waiting for you to ask! It got so bad last night that I couldn't sleep!" She sat back and held Sei's hand. "I was about to ask you, because Suyeon said if you wouldn't ask me then the only way to find out for sure was to ask you-"

"You talked to Suyeon about me?" Sei asked incredulously.

Lucy nodded. "Apparently I woke her up when I was making tea, and she wouldn't let me go until I told her what was wrong. So I told her, and she said the only way I could know for sure was to ask you. Then she said she wouldn't advise it, and that she'd be there for me if I got my heart broken."

Sei's jaw dropped. So after everything she had said the other day about not being upset if Sei was dating someone else, here she was going around behind Sei's back and trying to sabotage her! "Why did she say she advised against you dating me?"

Lucy shrugged. "She said in-band relationships almost never work out, and I pointed out Doyeon and Yoojung, and she said that most in-band relationships aren't like them."

Sei was happy that Lucy had agreed to be her girlfriend, but at the same time she was furious at Suyeon. How could Suyeon do that to her?

"Hey! Are you okay?" Lucy looked concerned. She reached out and took Sei's hand. "Did I say something wrong?"

Sei shook her head. "No, no, not at all. I just can't believe Suyeon would say that about me." She looked down at Lucy's hand, clasped in hers, then into Lucy's eyes. "Does she think so little of me, to think I'd hurt you like that?"

Lucy leaned in toward Sei. "Oh, no, it's not like that at all - I didn't tell her who I was interested in, just that it was someone in the band."

Sei nodded, taking this in. She tried to calm down, but it was hard to get rid ofthat anger now that she'd she discovered she didn't need it. "Oh. Oh! That's different! I thought Suyeon and I were about to have problems."

Lucy looked down at Sei. She pulled her in for a hug. "Nope, no problems. Just happiness that you finally asked me. I thought for sure you'd ask me when I told you about how I imagined my first kiss - I mean, I did everything but call you by name in that story!"

Sei laughed. "Lua fussed at me the whole time she was trimming my bangs! I hadn't figured it out before then, but once she explained me I saw it."

"So why didn't you ask me right away?" Lucy asked. 'Why'd you wait a couple of days?"

Sei shrugged. "I don't know. I almost asked you while you were cooking last night, but you were so wrapped up in your cooking, I didn't want to distract you. Plus, I had some things I needed to get right inside my head."

Lucy looked concerned. "It was about Suyeon, wasn't it? I know you used to have a crush on her, and I didn't know if you still did, so that's part of why I was hesitant to ask you. I didn't want you to be disappointed, if you were interested in one of our seniors and then you ended up dating me. . ."

Sei jerked her head up. She looked into Lucy's eyes. "Oh, no! Never! No one could be disappointed to be dating you!"

Lucy lowered her eyes. She smiled and blushed. "That's sweet of you to say-"

"It's true!" Sei said fiercely.

Just then Yoojung stuck her head around the edge of the doorframe. "Hey! You two ready for mah- nevermind. I'll come back later."

Lucy looked up at Yoojung. "Just give us a couple of minutes," she said. Yoojung nodded and left the room.

Lucy leaned forward to kiss Sei, who leaned back in order to stay just out of reach. "Oh no," Sei said. "You didn't say your first kiss was all in a rush because you were in a hurry to go play mahjong. You said we kissed for a long time after that first kiss."

Lucy raised her eyebrows. "You remembered all that?"

Sei nodded. "Every word of it."

Lucy grabbed Sei and hugged her. "You're so sweet!" She let go of Sei and looked at her. "We'd better be going. Yoojung and Elly will be getting impatient waiting for us. No point in having them pissed off at us."

Sei nodded. "Good point. So. . . how do you want to tell them about us? Do you want to make a big announcement or just wait and let them figure it out or what?"

Lucy thought for a moment. "New relationship parties aren't really a thing, and I'm not sure that all of our bandmates will be happy for us, so we might at well just wait and let them figure it out."

Sei nodded. "Good idea. I don't think it will be hard to figure out, though, when we're all heart-eyes for each other."

Lucy laughed. "Good point!" She took Sei's hand and led her toward the door. "Now let's go play some mahjong!"

Suyeon was lying in her bed, playing a game on her phone when Elly came in and flopped down on her bed.

"So. . . " Elly said, "Lucy and Sei are apparently dating now. Just thought you'd want to know."

Startled, Suyeon rolled over toward her. "Why would I want to know?"

Elly shrugged. "You always want to know everything that's going on in Weki Meki, so I just figured you'd want to know this."

Suyeon rolled back over and restarted her game. Apparently Elly's remarks were perfectly innocent.

"Plus there's the fact that Sei was interested in you for quite a while," Elly went on, causing Suyeon's breath to catch in her throat, "but just so you know, that ship has sailed."

Suyeon nodded, not quite trusting her voice yet. After a couple of minutes, she said "Well, I hope they're happy. And if they're not, I hope they don't cause any drama."

"Lucy? Drama?" Elly scoffed. One of Lucy's nicknames was "drama magnet" - if there was drama going on anywhere in the group, Lucy would in the middle of it.

Suyeon laughed. "Yeah, I guess that's too much to hope for." She checked the time on her phone before turning it off and sticking it in her pocket before sitting up. "I'm going to see if Doyeon needs any help with dinner tonight."

Elly watched Suyeon walk out of the room, an impish grin on her face. "Suyeon think's she's fooling everyone," she thought, "but I know her too well. She liked knowing that Sei was interested in her, even if she never was going to do anything about it. It was like an ego trip or something." She started checking her Insta feed, waiting for the drama that she was sure was going to happen.

Suyeon walked into the kitchen, where Doyeon was leaning against the counter, making out with Yoojung. They were usually able to keep their public displays of affection to a minimum, but then, they weren't usually trapped in the apartment like this. Sharing a room with Sei and Lua can't be easy for them. Suyeon quietly backed out of the kitchen. Seeing Lua and Rina sitting on the couch watching the news, she went and sat by them.

"Oh, Hi Suyeon," Rina said. "Yeah, I guess we should've warned you - dinner's gonna be a little late today."

Suyeon chuckled. 'You walked in on that too, huh?"

Rina nodded.

"They've only been at it for about 15 minutes," Lua said, "I was planning to give them another 15 minutes before I went in and loudly poured myself a glass of juice."

Suyeon nodded and leaned back, glad that someone else would be dealing with this particular situation. "Anything interesting on the news?" she asked.

Lua snorted. "If by 'interesting' you mean 'something other than caronavirus', then no. If you mean interesting like 'did you hear the latest incredibly stupid thing the American president said?' then there's the part where he now says he was being sarcastic yesterday when he told people to inject themselves with disinfectant."

"He what? Inject themselves?" Suyeon was stunned.

Lua nodded. "Didn't you hear about that? It was all over the news last night. People should inject disinfectant to cure the coronavirus!"

"And they should shine sunlight inside their bodies, somehow," Rina piped up.

"I didn't see that in the paper," Suyeon said, "and I think I was better off for it. People weren't really listening to him, were they?"

"You'd like to think not," Rina said, "but the sudden rush of people to American emergency rooms with poisoning after he made the announcement would seem to say otherwise."

Suyeon shook her head. "That stupid man!" She was glad that the Korean response to COVID-19 had been so well managed, even if it did mean they were all confined to their dorm until who knows when. 

Just then Lucy and Sei came in. Suyeon couldn't help but notice they were holding hands. "Don't go there, Suyeon," she thought. "You had your chance with Sei and you blew it." Looking around the room, she noticed the approving smile that Lua was giving Sei and Lucy. So apparently Lua knew this was going to be happening, whether because she played matchmaker or just because she approved of the match. Either way- "Don't be mean, Suyeon," she told herself, "Lua had no way of knowing she was breaking up you and Sei, if that even was what she did." She shook her head to clear it.

Lua noticed Suyeon shaking her head suddenly. "Unnie, are you okay?" she asked.

Suyeon nodded. "Yeah, I just. . . feeling a little lightheaded. Gonna need dinner soon. Didn't you want to go get some juice?"

"Sure thing," Lua said, "and I'll get one for you too. If you pass out because you haven't been eating well, Manager-nim's gonna make you go to the hospital. I'll be right back."

Lua jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Suyeon could hear her noisily getting the glasses out of the cabinet, then pouring the juice. "Oh. My. Look. At. The. Time," Lua said, in the flattest, most expressionless voice that Suyeon could possibly imagine. When she came back in the common room with the two glasses of juice, though, she had the biggest grin on her face. She handed one of the glasses of juice to Suyeon, then sat back down next to Rina and took a sip of her juice.

"That was so epic!" she said as she started laughing. "If looks could kill, I would be so dead right now!" She gestured to Suyeon. "Drink your juice. Don't make me have died for nothing!" 


	8. Trying again

Lua sat on her bed looking out the window. After several minutes of staring out at the empty streets around the dorm, she sighed and got up to go get a glass of water. As she stepped into the kitchen, she was ambushed by Rina with a hug.

"Hey there!" Rina said. "I was wondering if you were ever going to come out of your room." That was one of the conditions of their relationship: Someone who was in their bedroom couldn't be bothered. Especially since they couldn't leave the dorm, they needed to each have a place where they could get away from the other one if they needed to.

"Oh, yeah. I'm actually just out to get some water, then I was headed back to my room," Lua mumbled.

"That's no fun!" Rina protested, squeezing Lua tighter. "Come play with me!"

Lua shook her head. "I can't right now," she said quietly. "Just. . . lotta stuff going on in my mind, you know?"

"And you'd rather be alone with your mind stuffs than spend time with me?" Rina asked.

"Not really," Lua said. "That's sort of the problem."

"I'm not seeing the problem," Rina said, craning her head around to look into Lua's eyes. "If I want to spend time with you, and you want to spend time with me, where's the problem?"

Lua disengaged herelf from Rina's arms and got herself a glass of water. After she took a couple of sips, she looked at Rina and shook her head sadly. "Remember when we started all this, you said that the reason you picked me was because you know I wouldn't fall in love with you? Well, you were wrong. That's where I've been all morning - trying to talk myself out of loving you. But I can't do it. I'm sorry. I-" She sniffled and blinked back tears. "I've got to go." 

Before Rina was able to realize what Lua had said, Lua had rushed past her and shut herself in her room again. She was still standing there when Elly came into the kitchen to get some lunch.

"Hey Rina," Elly said casually as she put on a pot of water to make ramen. Not getting an answer, she turned and looked at Rina. Rina was just standing in the kitchen, one arm across her body holding her other arm, staring off into the distance.

"Rina!" Elly called out again. "Rina!" She waved her hand in front of Rina's face. Finally, Rina snapped out of it and noticed that Elly was in the room with her.

"Oh! Hi unnie! When did you get here?" Rina asked, her voice all forced casualness.

"A couple of minutes ago," Elly said, "and you were standing here staring at the wall. What's wrong? Are you feeling okay?"

Rina nodded. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine. Just got lost in my thoughts, you know?"

Elly kept silent and stirred her ramen. She wouldn't say that Rina was shallow - not out loud, at any rate - but she seriously doubted Rina had ever had a thought deep enough to get lost in. It was the primary factor behind the two of them splitting up - Elly couldn't date someone she couldn't have a conversation with, no matter how good the other aspects of the relationship were. But seeing that Rina looked seriously distressed, she put aside any of the snarky comebacks that readily sprang to mind and instead asked "You want to talk about it?"

Rina shook her head. "Just. . . girl trouble, you know. I'll figure it out."

Elly nodded, thinking silently for a moment as she poured her ramen into a bowl and carefully carried it to the table. "You sure you don't want to talk about it?" She grabbed a pair of chopsticks and sat down at the table, looking up at Rina. She took a bite of her ramen, chewed and swallowed, then said "I've noticed you and Lua have been all over each other again the last few days. What's wrong? Trouble in paradise?"

Rina shook her head, then nodded, then finally said "I don't even know. It's weird. You sure you want to hear about it?"

Elly idly stirred her ramen with her chopsticks. "If I wasn't willing to list to you talk about your problems, whatever they are, I wouldn't have asked. Twice. Now have a seat and tell me all about it. I can't guarantee I'll have any answers, but maybe you'll feel better after talking it out."

Rina stepped forward and stood behind the chair opposite Elly, her hands on the back of the chair. "Are you sure about that? I mean, after our history together. . . " She trailed off.

"You mean because I'm your ex-girlfriend," Elly said as she took another bite of ramen. Once she'd chewed and swallowed, she said "That makes me perfect for this. Lua and I know you the best of anyone in the band, and since obviously you can't talk to her about this, I'm the logical candidate."

Nodding, Rina pulled the chair out and sat down. After taking a deep breath, she had a couple of false starts before deciding how she wanted to begin. "I. . . that is, Lua. . . anyway, you were right: Lua and I are back together. It's been nice. But it was supposed to just be a bit of entertainment during the quarantine, you know? I mean, we talked a lot beforehand and we both agreed we wouldn't fall in love, and that this was just for the duration of the quarantine, and. . . And then this morning Lua came in here and told me that she'd fallen in love with me again, then she went and shut herself in her room so I can't talk to her."

Elly looked confused. "Why can't you go talk to her?"

Rina shook her head. "That was one of our rules - bedrooms are off limits unless we specifically invite the other one in."

Elly picked up her bowl and drank the last of her ramen broth. "But if she's breaking one rule by falling in love, why shouldn't you break another rule by going into her room to talk to her?"

"I don't know," Rina said. "It's just - I don't know what to say or how to say it."

Elly set her bowl down. "Because you're in love with her too," she said quietly.

"I didn't say that!" Rina said quickly.

"You don't have to," Elly said. I still remember when you and Lua broke up before - you both still loved each other, but you were each too proud to be the one to admit you were wrong and try to start the process of getting you back together. I think - whether you'll admit it or not - you were hoping something like this would happen when you and Lua started things up again, but now that it's happened, you don't know what to do, especially since Lua is going to use the fact that she fell in love with you as a reason to break up with you."

Rina looked stricken. "You really think she is?"

Elly nodded. "If she thinks she broke the rules you two had set up, she'll insist on it. She'll think she's a horrible person for breaking the rules and that she's got to break things off before they get any worse." 

Rina sat silently for a moment, before asking "So what do I do now?"

Elly shook her head. "Oh no. I said I'd listen to your problems. I never said I'd solve them. If I give you a suggestion and you try it, you'll blame me if things go wrong. I'm perfectly willing to listen to you and to give you my view of the situation, but I'm not about to start offering advice."

Rina nodded. "I guess that's fair. To be honest, I don't know if I'd take your advice anyway - I never was very good at listening."

"What I will say," Elly said, as she got up and put her bowl in the sink, "is that you could talk to me about this all day and night, if I'd let you, and that wouldn't solve your problem."

Rina sat quiety long after Elly had left the room. Finally she got up and headed for Lua's room. She stood outside the door, raised her hand to knock, and froze. She was so preoccupied that she didn't hear Lucy come up the hall behind her.

"Why doesn't she knock?" Lucy said, in an uncanny imitation of Olaf from Frozen. "Do you think she knows how to knock?"

Rina stood there silently for a moment before she broke down laughing. "Hi Lucy!" she said. "What are you up to? Besides making fun of me."

"I wasn't making fun," Lucy said, "but you were posed just like in the movie. It was too good to pass up."

Just then the door opened. Lua had already taken a step out of the room before she noticed Rina and Lucy standing there. "Oh! Hi! What are you two doing?"

"She doesn't know how to knock," Lucy said with a barely suppressed laugh as she went down the hall toward the common room, leaving Rina and Lua standing in the hall.

Rina rolled her eyes. "Maknaes. Am I right?"

"Less talking! More cooking!" Yoojung called out from the within the room.

"Oh. . . um. . . yeah. I was on my way to fix dinner. You want to come with me? We can talk while I cook." Lua looked expectantly at Rina.

Rina nodded. "Sure. Let's go."

Rina and Lua walked quietly into the kitchen. Lua started gathering her ingredients while Rina stood in the center of the room, awkwardly clasping and unclasping her hands. After a couple of minutes, Lua turned to face Rina. "I'm really sorry about this," she said. "On the other hand, we were going to break up anyway when the quarantine ended. We're just getting a jump on things."

"Who said we're breaking up?" Rina asked.

Lua sighed. "You said it yourself at the start of this - this is the equivalent of a summer fling. If I've fallen for you this hard now, it'd be even harder to split up a several weeks from now, so it's better if we break it off now."

"But," Rina said, "what if I've fallen for you too?"

"Then that's all the more reason to break it off now," Lua said. "It's only gonna get harder the longer we wait." She turned back toward the counter and started chopping vegetables.

"What if I don't want to break it off?" Rina asked.

Lua put down her knife and stood silently for a long moment. Finally she turned around. "What are you saying?" she asked, the redness of her eyes more apparent.

Rina took a step toward her. "What if we try to make a go of it, for real."

Lua shook her head. "We've tried that already. We practically tore each other apart. Remember?"

Rina nodded. "I remember. But I'm still willing to try. Maybe this time will be different."

Lua look deep into her eyes and took a hesitant step toward her. "And maybe it won't."

Rina smiled at her. "There's only one way to find out."


	9. What to do between dinner and bedtime

Doyeon and Yoojung sat on the Doyeon's bed talking, enjoying the fact that both of their roommates were out of the room, so they had a rare moment of privacy.

"I feel bad for Elly," Yoojung said.

"For Elly?" Doyeon looked at her skeptically.

Yoojung nodded. "We're together. Lua and Rina are together. Sei and Lucy are together. Elly's all by herself."

"And what are you suggesting?"

Yoojung grabbed Doyeon's arm and wrapped it around herself. "I wish we could fix Elly up with someone. She was so happy when she was with Rina, but now that's not a possibility. If only there was someone."

Doyeon rolled her eyes. "We're locked in our apartment - did you forget about that? Even if we could think of someone to try to fix Elly up with, we couldn't get the two of them together."

"If only there was someone else in the dorm we could hook Elly up with," Yoojung said, as she leaned back against Doyeon.

Doyeon sat up straight, dislodging Yoojung. "You're talking about Suyeon. That's never going to work and you know that and we're not even going to try."

'Why wouldn't it work?" Yoojung asked, putting on her most innocent face.

"Because," Doyeon said. When that didn't satisfy Yoojung, she elaborated: "Because Suyeon has made it abundantly clear that her first loyalty is to Weki Meki. She thinks dating is a bad idea, and she thinks dating within the band is a particularly bad idea."

Yoojung scoffed. "That's just what she says," she said, "but her actions tell a different story. Haven't you see the wistful way she looks at the couples around the dorm? She wants someone, she just doesn't know how to go about it, especially in light of what she's said in the past."

Doyeon laughed. "I think you're delusional. I think that just because things went right when you tried playing Cupid for Sei and Lucy, the power has gone straight to your head and now you think you can do anything where romance is concerned."

Yoojung joined in Doyeon's laughter, then stopped suddenly her face growing serious. "Maybe I can do anything where romance is concerned. You ever think of that, Miss Doubter?"

Doyeon pulled Yoojung in for a hug. "As adorable as I think you are, I think you're wrong here. This isn't some second-rate fanfic where we all end up paired off. This is real life, where Suyeon has already said she's not interested, and even if she was, I don't think Elly would be a good match for her."

"Why not?" Yoojung asked. "I think they'd be perfect. They're the two oldest members of the band. They're both superior-serious about Weki Meki. Haven't you noticed how Elly steps in as leader whenever Suyeon can't? It's practically like they're one person, sometimes."

"That doesn't necessarily make it better," Doyeon said. "I mean, what if Suyeon's not her own type?"

"Of course she is!" Yoojung protested. "She needs someone who's a lot like her and who's willing to let their relationship take a back seat to the band. I mean, can you imagine the mess it would create if, for example, Sei and Suyeon had gotten together?"

Doyeon looked blankly at her, so Yoojung went on "Because Sei needs someone who adores her. Someone who spends all their time on her. Suyeon could never supply the kind of attention that Sei needs."

Doyeon shook her head. "I think you're misreading things - I don't think Sei is high maintenance."

Now it was Yoojung's turn to roll her eyes. "I never said Sei was high maintenance. Rina's high maintenance. Sei just needs a lot of attention. There's a difference. Sheesh. If you're this clueless about relationships, it's a good thing I asked you out, because apparently I'd still be waiting if I had to wait for you to figure it out."

Doyeon's eyes grew wide. "Now wait a second! The way I remember, I was the one who asked you out."

Yoojung rolled her eyes again. "Of course, you think it was your idea - I chased you until you caught me."

"I- you- what?" Doyeon confusion was evident on her face. "Regardless, I don't think you're going to be able to get Suyeon and Elly together. I just don't see it working."

"Just you wait and see," Yoojung said with a grin.

* * *

Sei finished washing the dishes and made her way down the hall to Lucy and Rina's room. Rina, she already knew, was out in the common room with Lua, which meant Sei had a chance for some all-too-rare alone time with Lucy. When she got to Lucy's room, she found Lucy sitting on her bed drawing. "Hey there," she called out, 'You up for some company?"

Lucy looked at her, a wide smile on her face. "With you? Anytime!"

She put her sketchbook down on her bedside table, then held her arms out to Sei, who promptly ran across the room and jumped into her arms, bowling her over. Lucy laughed. "You're so excited, it's like you haven't seen me in forever!"

Sei laughed, enjoying the feel of Lucy in her arms. "Well, it feels like forever since we've had a chance to have any time alone. I don't know how Doyeon and Yoojung manage, because they've got two roommates to deal with."

Lucy joined in Sei's laughter. "We could become like Rina and Lua, if you prefer."

"What, and kiss anytime, anywhere, regardless of who's around?" Sei made a distasteful face. "If that works for them, whatever, but that's not my style."

Lucy reached out and stroked Sei's hair. "Mine either. I just wanted to see what you said about it."

"But speaking of our PDA champtions," Sei said, "Lua told me that they're going to be bingle-watching the last four episodes of Radio Romance tonight."

Lucy apparently failed to see the connection, as evidenced by the confusion on her face. "And you want us to go join them?"

Sei shook her head. "I was thinking that with them all tied up in the show, we could have almost four hours alone."

"Yeah," Lucy said with a nod, not entirely sure where Sei was going with this."

"Well," Sei said quietly, "I was thinking that this could be the night that I give you your first kiss, if you wanted it to be."

Lucy reached up and brushes Sei's bangs to the side. She nervously chewed on the bottom lip. "I think I want that," she said quietly, "but you've got to promise not to laugh at me."

Sei looked at her, confused. "Why would I laugh at you?"

"Because," Lucy said, "it's my first time kissing a girl. What if I'm not good at it? What if I'm a bad kisser? What if I kiss funny? What if-"

Sei stopped her. "I would never laught at you. And besides, it's my first time kissing you. Do you think I'm not nervous?"

Lucy waved dismissively. "But you've kissed girls before."

"But none of them were you," Sei said. "None of them I've felt about them the way I feel about you."

Lucy blushed. "But what if you get angry at me?"

Sei looked confused. "Why would I get angry at you?"

Lucy took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "What if we start to kiss, and I decide I'm not ready, and I say I want to stop? Wouldn't you get angry about that?"

Sei clasped Lucy's hand in hers. "You're always free to change your yes to a no - that's how consent works. And I promise that if you do, I'll stop, and I won't be angry at you."

Lucy thought about this for a long moment. "I think I want to. Can you close the door first? I don't want to take a chance on anyone walking in on us."

"Sure." Sei got up and closed the door. When she turned around, she saw that Lucy had sat up and was sitting on the edges of the bed. Sei sat down next to her and put her arm around Lucy's shoulders. They stared into each others' eyes for a long moment, then Sei finally decided it was time. Swallowing nervously, she leaned forward and touched her lips to Lucy. Her lips were so soft - softer than Sei had ever dreams lips could be. After that brief kiss, she leaned back. "Do you want more?"

Staring intently into Sei's eyes, Lucy nodded. Sei leaned in again, and again their lips touched. This time Lucy was prepared, and returned Sei's kisses. This time it was Lucy who disengaged. "I know there's more to kissing than just this," she said, "and I want to learn, but for now I'm enjoying kissing you just like this. Can we keep doing this?"

Sei nodded. "Of course. I want you to enjoy your first kiss."

Lucy nodded. "I am. It's just like I imagined it." She leaned in and kissed Sei. After several minutes of exchanging gently kisses, Lucy pulled back and said "Close your eyes. I want to try something." Sei closed her eyes, and Lucy leaned in and kissed her again. After kissing her several times, Lucy captured Sei's bottom lip between her teeth and nibbled on it gently. Sei moaned quietly, causing Lucy to instantly release her lip and pull back. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you? It was just something I'd read about that I wanted to try."

Sei smiled at Lucy. "You didn't hurt me. I was moaning because it felt good."

"Oh." Lucy blushed. "I guess I've got a lot to learn."

Sei reached up and stroked the side of Lucy's face. "I think we both do. I'm looking forward to leaning with you."

Lucy closed her eyes and leaned in for another kiss.

* * *

Suyeon lay on her bed, playing a number game on her phone. From the common room she could hear the sound of the TV, and when it got quiet, she could hear the sounds of Lua and Rina making out. She imagined Sei and Lucy down in Lucy's room, doing the same thing. And Doyeon and Yoojung in their room. It seemed like everyone was getting kissed but her. She looked across the room at Elly, who was doing something on her phone. 

"Don't be ridiculous, Suyeon," she told herself. "You and Elly? Really? Just because you're the only two people in the apartment not coupled up? Besides, you had your chance with Sei and you blew it."

Suddenly Elly spoke up. "Hey Suyeon, you want to do something bad?"

Startled, Suyeon dropped her phone. She could feel herself blushing as she turned toward Elly. "What did you have in mind?" she asked, trying to keep her voice calmer than she actually felt.

"Well," Elly said, leaning forward conpiratorially, "in the kitchen we've got a can of orange juice concentrate and a can of sweetened condensed milk. We could mix those with some frozen yogurt and make a Dreamsicle milkshake."

Suyeon laughed quietly. "And that would be bad?"

Elly nodded. "Think about how many calories are in that mixture! And if we don't tell the others what we're doing, it can be all ours."

Suyeon considered it for a moment. It would certainly take her mind off all the kissing she wasn't getting. "Let's do it!" she said.

Moving quietly, she and Elly made her way to the kitchen. "Of course," Suyeon thought, "we could have walked through with a marching band and Rina and Lua wouldn't have noticed." Taking down two large glasses from the cabinet, they put some frozen yogurt in each one, then half of the can of sweetened condensed milk in each one, then half the can of orange juice concentration in each one. Grabbing spoons, they stirred until all the ingredients were mixed, then each took a large sip of their shake.

"That's delicious!" Suyeon said. "Where did you learn to make that?"

Elly laughed. "I used to have a real sweet tooth, so my mom made up this recipe and I could have one every week if I met my target weight. It was enough to keep me away from sweets the rest of the week and to keep me on my exercise routine."

Suyeon took another sip. "Well, it's really good. Almost better than sex."

Elly winked at her. "I know, right? Almost."


	10. The pressure cooker

Sei and Suyeon were sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the morning grocery delivery. It was awkward. They had both come out at the same time because they couldn't sleep and wanted to wait for the groceries so that they had something to do, and neither one of them wanted to go back to bed, because then it would look like they were trying to avoid the other one, so they ended up together in the kitchen, waiting for the grocery delivery while everyone else slept.

"So. . ." Suyeon said as she twirled a chopstick between her fingers, "you and Lucy."

Sei nodded.

"How's that working?" Suyeon asked.

"Good," Sei tried to say, only to have her voice come out as a hoarse whisper. She coughed and tried again. "Good."

Suyeon nodded. 

The silence dragged on. Finally Sei couldn't take it anymore - she got up and put on water for a cup of tea.

"You want a cup of tea?" Sei asked.

Suyeon nodded. She hated this awkwardness. She and Sei had become so close when Weki Meki first started. Suyeon had felt like she could talk to Sei about anything. Dating seemed like the natural next step. But then had come the demands of leadership and the reality of having eight members of a group living together. Suyeon had insisted that their relationship had to stay a secret and, well, look where that had gotten them - broken up and Sei dating Lucy now. Suyeon knew there was no way to go back to the way things were, but she at least wanted to get over this awkwardness between them.

"Here you go, unnie." Sei put a cup of tea down in front of Suyeon, steam rising from its surface.

"Thanks," Suyeon said, before lapsing into silence again.

Suyeon had drunk about half of her cup of tea when she couldn't take it anymore. "Sei," she said, putting the teacup down so hard that a little sloshed over onto the table, "I can't live like this anymore."

"Like what," Sei asked. She could tell that Suyeon was upset, but she didn't know exactly what form of upset.

"Like this," Suyeon said, pointing back and forth between the two of them. "I could always talk to you, about anything, and you seemed like you could talk to me. It was one of the things that first attracted me to you. But now. . . it's like there's a wall or a minefield or. . . something. We find ourselves in the kitchen at the same time and can't find a dozen words to say to each other. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around you now; I never know what it's safe to say."

Sei sat silently, taking this all in. When she was sure that Suyeon had stopped, she began speaking, tentatively at first, but gaining confidence as she went on. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Suyeon. I think what it comes down to is you feel bad about the fact that I've moved on. I think you thought that I'd come back to you and give you another chance. And now that I didn't, you don't know how to deal with it."

Suyeon picked up her tea and took a sip. She looked across the table at Sei. "You're probably right. I guess I just always thought we could work things out."

"We probably could have," Sei said, "Except that your version of 'work things out' always looked like 'Sei gives Suyeon what she wants' and I just couldn't do that anymore. I'm happier now, and I hope you can find someone who gives you what you need. I really mean that. I want you to be happy."

Suyeon wiped her eyes. 'It's just really hard to deal with."

Sei reached across the table and took Suyeon's hand. "I'm sure there's someone out there who's the perfect person for you - it's just not me."

Suyeon nodded. She started to say something, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

* * *

Lua and Rina were sitting on the couch talking, an unwatched drama playing to cover up their words.

"Have you noticed Suyeon?" Lua asked

Rina looked confused. "What about Suyeon?"

"She hasn't been herself the last few days," Lua said. "She seems sad about something, and distracted. She's just zone out in the middle of a conversation."

Rina nodded. "I had noticed that. I figured it was just she wasn't getting enough sleep because she always wants to be up early to bring in the groceries."

"That might be part of it," Lua said, "but I don't think it's everything. This is just over the last few days -" a look of dawning realization came over her face - "ever since Lucy and Sei started dating."

Rina looked confused again. "Why would Suyeon be sad about Sei and Lucy dating? They make such a cute couple."

"I don't know if you had noticed, but for a long time Sei had a crush on Suyeon."

"Really?" Rina asked. "I never noticed."

Lua nodded. "Oh yeah, big time. I noticed and I talked to Sei about it a bunch of times, trying to talk her out of it. I don't know if anyone else had noticed it or not. But remember the other night when we were talking about what sort of bangs would look best on Sei?"

Rina nodded. "I remember that. I still think she'd look best if she went back to her natural hair color and got a shoulder-length bob with the choppy bangs."

"Yeah," Lua went on, "well, that night while I was trimming Sei's bangs, she told me a story that Lucy had told her about how she imagined her first kiss would be, and she basically did everything but call Sei out by name! So I pushed Sei to start dating Lucy, and, well, what if Suyeon knew that Sei had a crush on her, and it made her happy and she was trying to get up the nerve to do something about it? I ruined Suyeon's happiness."

Rina patted Lua's hand comfortingly. "Maybe you did, but you also made Lucy very happy, and Sei seems a lot happier, so I'd say it was a win."

"For everyone but Suyeon," Lua said, her brow furrowed in concentration. "I ruined Suyeon's happiness, so it's my responsibility to make her happy again." She stood up.

"Where are you going?" Rina asked.

"I can't do this by myself," Lua said. "I need an unnie's help."

Rina looked perplexed. "Which unnie?"

"I'm not sure," Lua said. "I think I'm going to need to talk to Yoojung and Doyeon."

"You want me to come with you?" Rina asked, leaning forward to stand up.

Lua shook her head. "No, this is something I've got to do myself. I'll be back in a little while."

Rina flopped back on the couch, idly looking at the drama. She knew Lua, and she knew that now that she had this idea in her head, she wasn't going to rest until she "fixed things," whatever that ended up looking like. In the meantime, all she could really do was stay out of Lua's way and hope she got over this obsession soon. She probably would - Lua was sweet, but she had the attention span of a toddler.

* * *

Sei, Lucy, Doyeon, and Yoojung were playing mahjong when Lua came up and whispered something in Yoojung's ear. Yoojung stood up. "Guys," she said, "I'm sorry to break up the game, but I've got to go take care of something." She and Lua rushed back to their bedroom. 

Doyeon looked after them, then looked at Sei and Lucy. "I'd better go see what's going on - see if I need to keep Yoojung out of trouble," she said, before getting up to follow them.

"Well, so much for our game of mahjong," Lucy said, idly grabbing the tiles and starting to build a tower out of them.

"I'm sure we can find something to do," Sei said, smiling at Lucy. When Lucy didn't return her smile, she leaned forward and looked into Lucy's eyes. "Is something wrong?"

Lucy swiped at her tower, knocking it down and scattering tiles all over the table. "It's nothing," she said with a sigh.

"It doesn't seem like nothing," Sei said, reaching out and taking Lucy's hand.

Lucy pulled her hand away. "I heard you and Suyeon talking this morning," she said. "Were you ever planning to tell me that you and Suyeon had dated? And fairly recently, from the sounds of it?"

Sei sighed. "I'd hoped I wouldn't need to," she said. She looked around. "Can we go back to your room and talk about this in private?"

Lucy stood up and stalked off to her room, leaving Sei to follow along in her wake. Once they were in Lucy and Rina's room, Sei shut the door behind herself and went to sit on the bed next to Lucy, who scooted slightly away so that they weren't touching. "Okay, talk," Lucy said.

Sei took a deep breath and took some time to compose her thoughts. "Yes," she said. "Suyeon and I dated. From right after Weki Meki debuted until just a couple of days before you and I got together. But she didn't want anyone else to know, so there wouldn't be any drama in the band. She didn't want anyone to think she was playing favorites because I was her girlfriend. So what it amounted to is I got actually to be her girlfriend for just a few minutes a day. She was never there when I needed her or wanted her."

"So, what, you couldn't have her so you decided to go out with me?" Lucy asked scathingly.

Sei shrank in on herself a little bit. "It seems like that, but it wasn't like that at all. When I found out you were interested in me, I realized I had a chance for something better, that I was worth more than Suyeon was giving me. So I broke up with her, then a day or so later started going out with you. I didn't want to be cheating on her, and I didn't want to be with you when I was still with her. I waited until I was free before I came and talked to you."

"Sei, please leave," Lucy said quietly. "I need to think about this and figure out exactly how I feel about it, and I can't do that with you here."

"Okay," Sei said quietly. As she backed toward the door, she said "I just want you to know that I really care about you and I would never want to hurt you and-"

"Just leave!" Lucy shouted.

* * *

Doyeon scowled at Yoojung. "I suppose now that you've got Lua on your side in this campaign to get Suyeon and Elly together, there'll be no talking you out of it."

Yoojung smiled her most endearing smile at Doyeon. "Just think how nice it will be! Everyone in the band will be with someone and no one will be left alone!"

"I just don't think it's right," Doyeon said, shaking her head. "If Suyeon and Elly wanted to be together, they'd have gotten together by now. I mean, they've only been sharing a room for three years!"

"Maybe they just don't know they want to be together," Yoojung said. "But if we-"

"By 'we,' you'd better mean you and Lua," Doyeon interrupted. "I want no part of this, and I'm seriously considering going to Doyeon and Elly and telling them what you're planning."

"Awww, don't do that!" Yoojung pleaded. "Look, just let us try. If they get together, they get together. If they don't, they don't. But I don't think it's right to leave them there, both obviously wanting someone, each perfect for the other, and have it not happen because none of their friends tried to help them."

Doyeon sighed. "Okay, fine. Try it. But if you see it's not working, back off. If it looks like you're not doing that, we'll be talking about this again."

Yoojung grabbed Doyeon and hugged her tightly. "I knew you'd come around and see it my way!" she said.

"Now wait," Doyeon began. "I never said-"

"Whoever was playing mahjong!" They could hear Elly's voice reverberating throughout the whole apartment. "You'd better come pick up the tiles if you want dinner tonight!"

Doyeon started to head out to the kitchen, but Yoojung stopped her. "I've got this," she said. "You just relax."


	11. The start of a plan

Yoojung came into the kitchen and started putting away the mahjong tiles. Elly busied herself with gathering all her ingredients and waiting for the table to be free. Once Yoojung had all the tiles put away, she called out to Elly, "Okay, the table's yours!"

"Thanks," Elly said. She put a cutting board down on the table and started slicing vegetables.

Yoojung picked up the mahjong case and headed out of the kitchen. In the doorway, she stopped and turned. "You know, Elly," she said, "I noticed you haven't dated anyone since you and Rina broke up." She held up her hands as if to fend off any interruptions from Elly. "Now I know you said that you broke up with her and that you were happier without her than you had been with her. But still, you know, you're my unnie and I want you to be happy."

Elly rolled her eyes and put down her knife. "What are you getting at, Yoojung? In case you haven't noticed, we're shut in here and the supply of single women is rather thin, bordering on non-existent."

"But you don't need a lot," Yoojung said. "You only need one if she's the right girl?"

Elly turned to face Yoojung. "Yoojung-ah, I see what you're doing, and I'm going to tell you right now it won't work."

"What?" Yoojung's face was a picture of innocence.

"You're trying to fix me up with Suyeon," Elly said, "and that's never going to happen."

Yoojung crossed the room to stand close to Elly. "But why not?" she asked. "You two would be perfect for each other. You're both so serious." She lowered her eyebrows and scowled to mime being serious. 'You're both totally into the business aspect of the band. Neither one of you would let your relationship drama - if you ever had any - affect the band. And I think you two would be so much happier with each other than you are alone. Not to mention-" Yoojung wiggled her eyebrows suggestively- "you already share a room."

Elly snorted. "Leave it to you to think of that aspect first," she said. She looked down at Yoojung, trying to assess how serious she was about this idea. "I'm not going to get any rest until I let you do something, am I?"

Yoojung shook her head.

Elly rolled her eyes. "Fine - set us up on a blind date, if she'll go for it, but after that, when we both say no, you drop this idea and leave it alone."

"Deal!" Yoojung exclaimed, as she turned and skipped out of the kitchen.

Elly picked up her knife and started chopping vegetables again. This crazy idea of Yoojung's should be good for a little entertainment, at least.

* * *

"Everything Sei told you was true," Suyeon said.

Lucy looked up from where she had her hands clasped in her lap. "So what do I do now?" she asked.

"That's for you to decide," Suyeon said.

"But what about you and Sei?" Lucy asked.

Suyeon waved dismissively. "'Me and Sei' is over - and was before she started dating you."

"But that's just it!" Lucy protested. "How can I date someone who'd be so mercentary about something like that?"

Suyeon shook her head. "I don't think she was being mercenary. When she broke up with me, she wasn't telling me anything she hadn't already told me dozens of times. But she finally reached a point where she just couldn't take it anymore."

"Like what?" Lucy asked.

"Like how I was never there for her when she needed me," Suyeon said sadly, "and how it sucked only getting to act like my girlfriend a couple of minutes a day, and how she wanted someone she could date openly."

"It just doesn't make any sense," Lucy said, shaking her head.

Suyeon knitted her brows. "What doesn't make sense?"

"She broke up with you to be with me," Lucy said, gesturing with her hands, "and when she and I start having problems, you're sitting here basically telling me to take her back."

Suyeon laughed. "Well, I guess if you put it like that, I does seem kind of weird." Her face grew serious as she went on. "But you're right, I do think you should take her back - she looked happy when she was with you. A lot happier than she had the last few months she was with me. No, me and Sei is definitely over, and I'd hate to be the reason that you two split up. Now if there's more you're not telling me, that's different, but based on what you've told me so far, I think your best option is to take her back."

Just then there was a knock on Suyeon's door.

"Hold that thought," Suyeon said. "I'll be right back." She got up and went to open the door. 

Lucy heard Sei's voice but couldn't make out what she was saying, then heard Suyeon say "Come on in, I definitely think you should talk about this-" Lucy whipped her head around just as Suyeon led Sei into the room- "but not with me."

Sei stopped suddenly, surprised to find Lucy there. "Oh, Lucy, I didn't know you were here talking to Suyeon," she managed to get out. "I'll come back later."

Suyeon grabbed Sei by the arm and kept her from leaving. "Oh no you don't. There are two people in this room who need to talk, and I'm not one of them," she said, pushing Sei toward the empty spot on the bed next to Lucy. "Now, Elly's busy fixing dinner, and I'm going to go see what's on TV, so you two have this room for about half an hour. I don't want you coming out until you've worked this out." And with that, Suyeon left and shut the door behind her.

Sei looked at Lucy. "Is it all right if I sit down?"

Lucy nodded. "You heard Suyeon. You've pretty much got to."

They both started to laugh, then the laughter died away.

"Lucy," Sei said. "I'm sorry I wasn't up front with you about everything. I certainly never meant to make you feel second best. I'm sorry." She looked down at her hands and began picking at a jagged piece of cuticle.

Lucy reached out and grabbed Sei's chin, lifting her head so that they were looking into each other's eyes. She sighed softly. "I don't know what to say," she said. "Part of me is still upset with you, and part of me wants to listen to Suyeon and take you back, if you even still want to date me, and I don't know which part to listen to you."

Sei's eye began to glisten. "Of course I still want to date you!" she said. "I don't know if that makes things easier or harder for you, but there it is." She reached up and took Lucy's hand, which Lucy made no attempt to reclaim.

Lucy nodded. "I suppose that does make it easier." She looked up, sighed, then looked back at Sei. "I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not, but this feels right, so here goes: I want to be your girlfriend, and I want you to be mine."

Sei leaped forward and wrapped her arms around Lucy's neck. "Yes! Absolutely, yes!" By the sound of her voice and the way she was shaking, Lucy could tell that Sei was crying. She wrapped Sei up in a hug and pulled her as close as she could. 

After several minutes, they'd regained their composure enough to leave Suyeon and Elly's room, even if they did both still have red eyes from crying so much. When they came out into the common room, Suyeon looked over at Lucy, who gave her a thumbs-up and reached out to take Sei's hand.

* * *

Rina was lying in her bed, tossing a stuff animal in the air and catching it, over and over. She stopped when she heard a knock at the door. "Come in," she called out. She looked over and saw Lua tentatively open the door and come in.

"Hey there," Lua said. "I know I'm not supposed to bother you while you're in here, but. . ."

Rina smiled and sat up. "Come on in, you big silly!"

Lua rushed into the room and sat down next to Rina, who immediately leaned forward and kissed her.

"How's your big project going?" Rina asked.

Lua shrugged. "I suppose it's going okay," she said. "Yoojung sort of took over everything. She says she'll need me for help later, and probably you as well, but for now she's got it under control."

"Ooh, that sounds mysterious!" Rina said. "Do you have any idea what she has planned?"

Lua shook her head. "Last I saw she was going into the kitchen to talk with Elly while Elly was cooking dinner."

Rina's eyes lit up. "Elly's cooking dinner tonight? She's such a good cook!"

Lua laughed. "Yes, she is, but that's hardly the point. The point is, Yoojung is trying to convince Elly to date Suyeon!"

Rina shook her head. "Do you really think this is going to work?"

"I don't know," Lua said with a shrug, "but I don't know what else we can do."

Just then, they heard Elly calling out from the kitchen: "Weki Meki! Dinner!"

"Yay!" Rina jumped up and rushed for the kitchen.

Lua laughed. "Well, I see where I rate in the grand scheme of things. She picked up Rina's stuffed animal from where it had fallen on the floor and then put it on the bed before heading for the kitchen. When she got to the kitchen, she saw that she was the last one to arrive. Elly was bustling around putting the finishing touches on dinner; everyone else was sitting at the table. 

"Oh Lua, you weren't here when I said before:" Elly began, "I put out name tags at each place because I didn't want the couples sitting next to each other and not talking to anyone else. So find your nametag and take your seat; dinner will be ready in just a moment.

Lua found her nametag at the end of one side of the table, next to Suyeon. There was a blank space for Elly next to Suyeon, then Yoojung. On the other side of the table it was Lucy across from Lua, then Doyeon, then Rina, then Sei.

"This should be interesting," Lua said.

"Well, we're all in here together all the time," Elly said as she start putting dishes on the table, "I figure if I deliberately shake up who's sitting next to who, it'll help keep things fresh.

"Good idea Elly," Lucy said. 

Lua couldn't help but notice that Elly's "keeping things fresh" had ended up with Elly and Suyeon sitting next to each other, with her and Yoojung on either side of them. "I think I see what she's up to," Lua thought. As they started eating, she worked on keeping Lucy and Doyeon engaged in conversation, hoping that Yoojung was doing the same with Rina and Sei. That would pretty much force Elly and Suyeon to talk to each other.

"Apparently Yoojung got Elly on board with this, somehow," Lua thought. "Now I just have to wait and see what's next in her plan." 


	12. Unexpected consequences

"Suyeon," Yoojung said, "can I use your phone for a second? I need to add some things to the shopping list for tomorrow's delivery."

"What do you want?" Suyeon asked. "I can add it."

Yoojung looked dubiously at Suyeon. "What if what I want is to request something for a surprise for you? Speaking of which, I'll need you to sleep in tomorrow so I can get the groceries. In case there's a surprise for you."

Suyeon smiled at her as she handed over the phone. "Okay, fine. I'm going to bed - give my phone to Elly when you're done with it."

"You got it, unnie," Yoojung replied, as she took Suyeon's phone and headed off to her room. Doyeon was there, lying on her bed reading a book, and Sei and Lucy were sitting on Sei's bed and looking out the window at the nighttime cityscape.

"Oh, good," Yoojung said, as she flopped down on her bed. "Sei, I can't remember are Suyeon and Elly team chocomint or not?"

Sei thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure Suyeon is," she finally said, "but Elly is definitely not."

"Thanks," Yoojung said, "that makes things easier." She started typing on the phone.

Doyeon looked at her over the top of her book. "What are you planning, Yoojung?"

Yoojung didn't stop typing as she answered Doyeon's question. "I'm going to make Elly and Suyeon an ice cream sundae to split tomorrow night. I figure after an hour in the kitchen, talking and stuffing themselves on yummy ice cream, they'll see that of course they should be together." 

"And if they don't," Doyeon said, "that'll be the end of this whole thing right? You promised."

"But what if it comes close? Will you let me try one more time?" Yoojung pouted as she looked across at Doyeon. "Not that I need another try," she said as she pressed send on the phone, "because I know this is going to work! BRB - I've got to go give this phone to Elly." And with that, she skipped out of the room.

Doyeon shook her head. "She's not going to give up," she said to herself. "This isn't going to work, and she's going to want to try just one more thing, then that won't work and she'll want to try just one more thing, and then. . . it'll never end, and meanwhile poor Elly and Suyeon will never have a moment's peace." She shook her head. "No, it's got to stop after this one try, even if I have to take the nuclear option." She suddenly became nervous in case Sei and Lucy had heard when she'd just said, but when she looked up they were oblivious to anything but each other.

Just then Yoojung came back into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed next to Doyeon. "You look grumpy, sweetie," she said. "What's wrong?"

Doyeon closed her book and laid her head down on the pillow. "I'm just afraid this whole thing is going to blow up and there's going to be all kinds of drama, and we haven't had any drama for ever so long and it's been so nice."

Yoojung stroked Doyeon's hair. "It's just one blind date for our unnies, nothing that could lead to drama. It'll be fine."

Doyeon turned away from Yoojung. "And when our unnies don't want to date each other? What then?"

Yoojung leaned closer so she was talking in Doyeon's ear. "Don't worry," she said, "there won't be any drama."

"Which is an entirely different thing from saying she won't try again," Doyeon thought to herself. She leaned back and kissed Yoojung. "I hope you're right," she said. "Now, I'm tired - I'm going to sleep. Wake me up and I'll wait for the groceries with you."

"Good night, sweetie!" Yoojung said, kissing Doyeon quickly before hopping out of her bed and pulling her duvet up to cover her.

* * *

Elly was about to drive herself nuts wondering what Yoojung was planning. She wished Yoojung would hurry up and get it over with - this one stupid blind date with Suyeon - so that things could get back to normal. She had a feeling that this was the day - Yoojung had been scuttling about trying to stay out of Elly's sight all day. So had Doyeon, for that matter. And Rina, and Lua - we're all the maknaes involved in this plan?

"Elly?" 

Elly jumped at the sound of Yoojung's voice coming from the doorway.

"I need to take you to the kitchen," Yoojung said, "then I'll go back to the common room to get Suyeon."

"And remember what you promised," Elly said.

Yoojung rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. I get one shot and this is it. Nobody will let me forget that!" 

"Okay," Elly said. "Just making sure - no need to bite my head off."

Yoojung escorted Elly into the kitchen, which had been totally redecorated to look like an ice cream shop - Elly had no idea where the maknaes had gotten enough streamers and construction paper to pull this off, but somehow they'd managed. Yoojung had Elly sit down at at the table and then said "Okay. I'll be right back."

Elly could hear Yoojung talking to Suyeon in the common room. She couldn't hear Suyeon's responses, but she could imagine them.

"Suyeon!" Yoojung began. "we - the younger members of Weki Meki - have been feeling bad that you're stuck in quarantine and not dating anyone, so we've set you up a blind date."

Suyeon had some response to this, then Yoojung responded "Of course we didn't break quarantine! Just come with me and you'll see."

Suyeon apparently protested some more, because Yoojung said "Just come with me and see! I've promised the others that I'd only make this one attempt, and you'll ruin the whole thing if you won't at least come to the kitchen."

"Oh dear," Elly thought, "Yoojung's turning on the aegyo." Soon after that, Yoojung came into the kitchen, leading Suyeon by the hand.

Suyeon burst out laughing. "Elly! You're my blind date?"

Elly waved her hands. "Apparently so - look at what the maknaes have done for us."

Suyeon looked around, her jaw dropped. "Wow! This is amazing!"

"And that's not all," Yoojung said. She guided Suyeon into the seat across from Elly, then went to the kitchen and pulled out a huge ice cream sundae. "This is for you two to share. Also, we're all going to bed early, so you two will have the common room all to yourselves if you want to watch a movie after finishing your sundae."

Suyeon sputtered in surprise. "Wow! You did all this for us?"

Yoojung nodded. "Have a great night!" she said as she skipped out of the kitchen.

"So," Elly said after Yoojung had gone, "it looks like the maknaes think their unnies can't get a date by themselves, so they've set out to help us." She made air quotes around the word "help."

Suyeon nodded. "I know. It's sweet, and at the same time totally unnecessary. What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should eat this delicious-looking sundae, then go watch a movie without the maknaes interrupting us." She leaned forward and spoke more quiety. "Then, to keep them from trying something like this again, we should probably pretend to date, at least until the quarantine is over."

"Do you think we can do that?" Suyeon asked uncertainly.

Elly scoffed. "Absolutely! All it will take is a little skinship and few endearing pet names and nobody's the wiser. After all, they won't know what goes on - or rather, doesn't go on - behind closed doors."

Suyeon pondered this, apparently weighing deceiving the maknaes against getting some peace and quiet, and in the end peace and quiet won. "Okay, sweetie," she said with a smile. "Let's do this!"

Elly smiled as she took a spoonful of the sundae. Now even if Yoojung was tempted to go back on her word, there'd be no reason for her to.

* * *

Sei and Lucy were sitting on Lucy's bed, leaning against the wall, their legs sticking straight out in front of them. Lucy was holding Sei's hand in both of her as they leaned against each other.

"Do you think this crazy idea of Yoojung's will work?" Lucy asked.

Sei shrugged. "I doubt it, but you never know. Maybe dating Elly will see like a 'mature' enough thing that Suyeon won't be able to come up with a reason not to." 

Lucy noticed the special emphasis that Sei had put on the word "mature" - apparently that had been an issue between her and Suyeon when they were dating. She smiled. "That shouldn't be a problem as long as the two of us are together," she thought to herself. "All we've got to do is be mature enough that the unnies don't call us 'immature' - there's no need to go full grown-up."

"You're awfully quiet over there," Sei said. "What'cha thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing," Lucy said lightly.

"It must be something," Sei protested. "Come on - I always tell you when you ask what I'm thinking."

Lucy scrambled to think of something she could say she was thinking about, but her mind had suddenly gone blank. Finally, she resolved that it would have to be the truth or nothing. "Fine," she said, "but you have to promise not to get upset."

Sei nodded. "Of course."

"Well," Lucy said, slowly and deliberately, "I was just thinking how lucky you are to be with me instead of Suyeon, because I plan to make you happier than she ever did."

Sei rested her head on Lucy's shoulder and looked up at her. "Not that it's a competition, but you already have," she said.

Before Lucy had a chance to respond, the bedroom door was flung open and Rina and Lua barreled in.

"Hi guys, what's up?" Lucy asked.

Rina carefully shut the door before answering. "We just had to get away before the fighting got any worse."

"The fighting?" Sei asked, confused.

Lua nodded as she and Rina sat down on Rina's bed, facing Lucy and Sei. "Between Doyeon and Yoojung."

"But-" Lucy protested, "they never fight."

"Well apparently they've decided to make up for lost time," Rina said.

"What are they fighting about?" Sei asked. 

Lua rolled her eyes. "What weren't they fighting about? It started with Yoojung wanting Doyeon to release her from her promise that this would be the only attempt at a blind date for the unnies, and then they apparently decided to have it out over every disagreement they've ever had. For example, did you know that back in their I.O.I days, Yoojung caught Doyeon making out with Somi?"

Sei and Lucy both shook their heads.

"Well neither did I," Lua said, "but apparently it's on the table for tonight's fight."

"And they were talking about all this with you two in the room?" Sei asked.

Rina nodded. "I think they got so caught up in each other, they forgot we were there. We probably could have stayed and they would never have noticed, but it was so uncomfortable being around them then when they were like that, we just had to get out. Sorry if we interrupted anything."

"You didn't," Lucy said. "We were just sitting here talking."

"Yeah, you didn't look like we were interrupting anything," Rina said, "but I wish Fantagio had arranged a 4-bedroom dorm for us, so each couple would have have a room." 

Lua laughed. "Oh yeah, like that would ever happen. We're not supposed to be dating, and once we are allowed to date, we're supposed to be straight, remember?"

They all laughed at this.

"They've got to know, don't they?" Lucy asked. "I mean, they can't be that clueless, can they?"

Rina looked at her and said "Oh, you'd be surprised what someone can fail to notice when their paycheck depends on them not noticing."


	13. Crossfire

Suyeon and Elly were lying on the couch, their arms around each other, watching a historical drama movie. 

"I really don't see why you get into these," Suyeon said.

"How could you not get into them?" Elly asked. "The costumes, the intrigues, the romances. . ."

"I suppose," Suyeon said. "I just prefer contemporary dramas. They're more realistic."

"If I wanted realism," Elly said, "I'd read the newspaper. I watch movies because I want to escape."

Just then the movie ended. Elly grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. In the sudden silence, they heard the sounds of yelling coming from the big bedroom.

"We'd better go see what's up," Suyeon said. She got up off the couch and headed down the hall. As they got closer to the door, they could hear the voices better. They still couldn't make out what they were saying, but they could tell it was Doyeon and Yoojung.

Elly put her hand on Suyeon's shoulder. "Doyeon and Yoojung?" she asked.

Suyeon nodded. She took another step forward and opened the door. Doyeon and Yoojung instantly stopped yelling. They were standing on opposite sides of the room, apparently throwing pillows at each other, based on all the pillows scattered around the room.

"What's going on?" Suyeon asked.

"Oh, you know," Yoojung tried playing it cool, "we were just having a disagreement, you know?"

"A disagreement?" Suyeon asked. "I looks more like you were rioting in here."

"It's nothing," Doyeon said, taking a step toward Yoojung.

"We were just coming to thank you for the blind date," Elly said, stepping forward and taking Suyeon's hand, "and we find you two fighting like this?"

"We're sorry," Yoojung said. Then her face brightened up. "But the blind date worked?"

Suyeon smiled and held up Elly's hand. "Apparently so."

"That's great!" Yoojung was jumping and down and clapping.

"And then we come in here and find you two fighting!" Suyeon scowled and glared, first at Yoojung, then at Doyeon.

"We're sorry, unnie," Doyeon said. "We didn't mean to cause drama."

"Well, you did," Suyeon said. "Elly and I are going to bed now. When we get up in the morning, you two need to have gotten back together or else broken up, but either way we want the drama over and this room cleaned up."

"Yes unnie," Doyeon and Yoojung said as one.

Suyeon and Elly left and went back to their room. 

"Well, that worked better than I expected," Elly said. "I had no idea it would be so easy to get the maknaes to stop meddling in our love lives."

"Yeah," Suyeon said distantly. She was standing in the middle of the room, rubbing one hand against the other. She turned to face Elly. "Your hands are so soft," she said.

Elly looked around. "It's just the two of us in here. You don't have to keep up the fake."

Suyeon stopped for a moment, then laughed briefly. "No, I was just going to ask what kind of hand lotion you use."

Elly picked up the tube of lotion from her nightstand. "It's this," she said. She tossed the tube to Suyeon. "You can keep that," she added, "I've got another tube in my closet."

"Thanks!" Suyeon said. She squirted some of the lotion onto her hands and started rubbing it in.

Elly laughed. "Yeah, if we start using the same cosmetics, the maknaes will definitely think we're a couple."

* * *

Lua yawned. "It's been a long day," she said. 'I want to go to bed."

They all listened for a moment.

"I don't hear any fighting next door," Rina said.

Lua leaned over and kissed Rina. "Then I'm heading to bed."

Sei turned to Lucy. "I'd better be heading to bed too." Before she had a chance to kiss Lucy, Lucy had grabbed her and kissed her.

"Well," Sei said, "if you're trying to convince me to stay here instead, you're doing a pretty good job."

Lucy laughed. "No, I know you need your sleep. I'm just still trying to get used to the fact that you're my girlfriend now and I can kiss you practically anytime."

Sei yawned, discreetly covering her mouth with her hand. "Well, right now you can kiss me tomorrow, because I've definitely got to get to bed." With another quick kiss, she was on her way.

When Sei got back to her bedroom, she saw that Doyeon was lying under her blanket, apparently asleep, and Yoojung was sitting on the edge of her bed. Lua was sitting next to Yoojung with her arm around her shoulders. Yoojung looked up at Sei, her face streaked with tears.

"She broke up with me," Yoojung said. "Just like that, she broke up with me. And the stupid part is, I don't even need to try to set up another blind date for the unnies because they got together. But- but Doyeon broke up with me. She said I'm irresponsible and immature and-" Yoojung collapsed against Lua, initating another round of weeping.

Sei came and sat down on Yoojung's other side, patting her shoulder awkwardly. "I'm sorry, Yoojung," she said. "Maybe tomorrow you'll be able to patch things up with her."

Yoojung sniffled and shook her head. "The things she said, and the things I said, I don't know if we can ever patch things up."

"Well, you've gotta try," Lua said. "You and Doyeon have been one of the few constants in Weki Meki. Maybe you can-"

Whatever Lua was about to suggest was drowned out by a snore from Yoojung.

"And just like that, she falls asleep," Lua said with a smile.

Sei rubbed Yoojung's shoulder. "She was probably wiped out. They were fighting for. . . what? Two hours?"

"Closer to three," Lua said with a nod. "Here, help me out with her."

Working together, Sei and Lua got Yoojung into her bed and covered with her duvet. Then they quietly got ready for bed themselves, the whole time talking quietly about the new changes around the apartment.

"So now Suyeon and Elly are together, but Yoojung and Doyeon are split up," Sei said, shaking her head.

"I know, right?" Lua agreed. "I never would have guessed either one of those. Doyeon and Yoojung have always been so devoted to each other it seemed like nothing could possibly split them up, and Suyeon's always been so devoted to Weki Meki it seemed like nobody could connect with her."

A look of recognition crossed over Sei's face. "What if nobody did?" she asked.

Lua looked confused. 'What are you talking about. Yoojung said she and Elly got together."

Sei nodded. "Which is exactly what Suyeon and Elly would want her to think, if they were just faking a relationship so that we'll all stop trying to get them together."

"What? That's crazy!" Lua said, shaking her head. "They'd never do that."

"Wouldn't they?" Sei asked, her eyebrows raised dramatically. "This sounds exactly like the sort of thing Suyeon would do if it would prevent drama in the group."

"But why would Elly go along?" Lua asked. "Elly always liked it whenever there was drama, because she always hoped things would get bad enough that somehow Suyeon would no long be our leader and she could be our leader instead."

Sei nodded thoughtfully. "There is that," she said after a long pause. "How can we tell? And does it matter if we can tell?"

Lua shook her head. "Short of bugging their bedroom, there's really no way we can tell. All we can do is let them play their little games, and do whatever we can to help Doyeon and Yoojung."

"That is going to be the problem, isn't it?" Sei asked "What can we possibly do about them?"

"Absolutely no idea," Lua said, reaching up and turning out her light. "I'm hoping some ideas will present themselves tomorrow."

Sei reached up and turned off her lamp, then laid back under her duvet. She was tired and wanted to go to sleep, but she couldn't get her thoughts to slow down enough to let her. If only she could go back in time to six hours ago, when everything seemed so much simpler.

* * *

The next afternoon, everyone was still trying to dance around the fact that Doyeon and Yoojung had broken up. Sei and Lucy were back in Lucy's room. Yoojung, Suyeon, Elly, and Lua were playing mahjong. Rina was lying on the couch playing Kart Rider. And Doyeon was sitting on the end of the couch reading a fashion magazine. The sounds of Doyeon turning pages and the clicks of the mahjong tiles were the only sounds. Suddenly, Doyeon said "Here's something interesting: When you're fighting with someone, fight only about what you're fighting about."

Yoojung snorted. "What does that even mean? What else would you be fighting about?"

Doyeon rolled her eyes. "It means you confine the fight to whatever's wrong right then, not use a fight as an excuse to dredge up everything the person has ever done wrong."

Yoojung silently played a tile, then looked across at Doyeon. 

Doyeon sat silently for several moments, waiting to see if Yoojung had anything else to say. When it appeared not, she said "Well, I think it's a good idea." She tossed the magazine down and left, headed for her bedroom.

After a couple of more turns, Suyeon looked at Yoojung. "You're on the verge of crying," she said. "Go talk to her. Maybe you can work things out, or if not work them out, at least get them to a better place than where they are now."

Yoojung flipped all her tiles face down then leaned forward over the table, holding her head in her hands. "I just don't know what to do," she said. "I don't know what to say." She looked up at Suyeon, her face haunted. "I'm afraid I said things last night we can't come back from."

Suyeon reached over and took Yoojung's hand. "There's only one way to find out," Suyeon said. "Go talk to her. Besides, this quarantine won't last forever, and the Ki-Lings will be able to tell if there's something wrong between you and Doyeon."

Yoojung listened carefully to this, then started off into the distance. "Maybe I should just leave the group. Some of the Ki-Lings already think Doyeon and I are going to be leaving soon anyway."

Suyeon squeezed Yoojung's hand tighter. "That's your fear talking. That's not you. The Yoojung I know would never run away from a situation like this," Suyeon said.

Yoojung looked down at the table. When she finally did talk, her voice was barely audible. "That's because the Yoojung you knew always had Doyeon at her side."

Suyeon looked fiercely at Yoojung. "Then you need to go try to get her back. Or if you can't, at least to break up better."

Yoojung stood up and smoothed out the wrinkles in her shirt. "You're right. I can do this." She headed down the hallway to find Doyeon.

Elly turned to Suyeon. "You think she can do it?"

Suyeon shrugged. "Who knows? It sounds like Doyeon was leaving an opening to try to patch things up between them. We'll just have to wait and see what happens." She checked the time on her phone. "It can't really be that late! I've got to get started fixing dinner.

"I'll put up the mahjong tiles," Lua said.

Elly stood up. "Then I'll just get out of your way," she said. Lua couldn't help but notice that she stopped and gave Suyeon a kiss on her way out of the kitchen, and smiled slightly to herself.


	14. Explosion

Suyeon and Elly were just finishing another historical drama when they noticed Yoojung at the end of the couch. She was wrapped in her blanket and carrying her pillow. 

"Hi unnies," she said. "Can you get off the couch soon? I'm tired and want to get to sleep."

"Can't you sleep in your bed?" Suyeon asked.

Yoojung shook her head. "I can't be around Doyeon like that. I mean, we talked some today and things are better, but they're still not good, you know?"

Suyeon nodded. "Okay," she said, "well, as luck would have it, we just finished our movie, so the couch is yours."

Suyeon and Elly got up and headed toward their room. 

"I'll try to not to wake you up when I bring in the groceries," Suyeon said.

Yoojung yawned and fluffed her pillow. "As tired as I am right now, I don't think you could wake me up if you brought in the groceries with an elephant." She curled up under her blanket and closed her eyes.

Onec they were back in their room with the door shut behind them, Suyeon turned to Elly. "We've got to get Yoojung and Doyeon back together," she said.

Elly rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, because the maknaes meddling in our love lives was wanted and worked out so well."

"It's not all bad, is it?" Suyeon asked with a mischievous wink.

Elly couldn't help but laugh at this. "Okay," she said when she finally stopped laughing. "Even if we assume that you're right - and I'm not saying I necessarily am - what do we do?"

Suyeon sat down on her bed and looked defeated. "I don't know. This afternoon it looked like Yoojung would be the obstacle to them getting back together, but tonight it looks like Doyeon's the obstacle."

Elly sat down on her bed, across from Suyeon. "So we tackle this problem from both ends."

"What do you mean?" Suyeon asked, looking confused.

"Tomorrow morning, you'll go talk to Yoojung and see what needs to happen from her point of view for them to be able to get back together. I'll be doing the same thing with Doyeon. Then we'll swap: You'll use what you learned from Yoojung to try to convince Doyeon that they should get them back together, and I'll be doing the same thing with Yoojung."

Suyeon's eyes lit up. "That's a brilliant idea!" She sat quietly for a moment. "You know, sometimes I almost wish we actually were dating."

Elly looked quizzically at Suyeon, one eyebrow cocked up. "I didn't think I was your type?"

Suyeon looked bewildered at this concept. "Not my type? Who do you think is my type, then?"

Elly leaned back on her elbows, a playful smile on her lips. "Oh. . . I don't know. . . I would think someone more like. . . Sei?"

Suyeon scoffed. "Don't even get me started on Sei," she said, waving dismissively. "I mean, she supposedly had a crush on me for months, but now all of a sudden she's dating Lucy? What's up with that?"

"Well," Elly asked, "did you ever give her any encouragement?"

Suyeon flopped down on her pillow. "No, I didn't." She rolled over to face Elly. "I mean, how could I? If I was dating one of the members, then the others would accuse me of favoritism any time I made a decision that affected them."

Elly shrugged. "I think you're underestimating our members. I mean, right now you're dating me and no one's complaining about anything like that."

Suyeon made a show of looking around the room. "But, you know, these aren't exactly typical circumstances." She rolled over to face away from Elly. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," she said. "We've got enough on our plates trying to deal with Doyeon and Yoojung. Sei's apparently happy with Lucy, and I'm glad she's happy."

Elly laid back and closed her eyes. "Looks like I touched a nerve," she thought.

* * *

The next morning, Suyeon got up to wait for the grocery delivery only to discover that Yoojung was already in the kitchen. "Couldn't sleep?" she asked.

Yoojung shook her head. "I kept waking up, and each time I woke up, I couldn't stop thinking about Doyeon."

Suyeon sat down across the table from Yoojung. "So you want to get back together with her?"

Yoojung nodded. "More than anything. But I don't know if she wants to get back together with me."

"There's only one way to find out," Suyeon said. 

Yoojung sat silent for a long moment. "I just don't know what to say." She reached out and clasped Suyeon's hand in both of hers. "Unnie, would you talk to her for me?"

Suyeon pretended to look surprised at this idea. "Me? What would I say?"

"Oh, you know," Yoojung said, waving dismissively, "how I'm miserable without her and I'm sorry for the things I said and I want to try again."

Suyeon shook her head. "I don't know if it's that simple. I mean, there must be some sort of problems between the two of you or else you wouldn't have split up. If you don't deal with those problems, you're just going to split up again the next time one of you gets upset." 

"But I think it'd be easier to work through the problems if we were together," Yoojung said.

"Some people might say you've got the order of things kind of backward," Suyeon said. "But not to worry, I'll talk to Doyeon and see what she has to say."

Just then they heard the sound of the groceries being dropped off outside the door. After a slow count of 10, Suyeon got up and brought in the grocery bags.

"Anything exciting today?" Yoojung asked.

"There shouldn't be," Suyeon said. "I didn't request anything exciting. Instant noodles, tangerines, tea, tuna. . ."

Yoojung laughed. "Apparently most of our diet is 'things that start with t'."

Suyeon agreed. "We should look over the grocery store's website today to see what they've got that we haven't been getting, maybe get some variety in our lives."

They batted food ideas back and forth as Suyeon put away the groceries. Most of the things they thought of were either too expensive, too difficult to cook, or just something Manager-nim wouldn't go for, but from time to time Suyeon would stop and add something to the list on her phone. "The fake crab legs are a good idea," Suyeon said, "we can present it to Manager-nim as 'look how much money we're saving compared to real crab,' but they still taste good."

"You know what I miss most?" Yoojung asked. "Coffee. I wish Manager-nim hadn't rejected our request for a coffee machine. When they let us out of here, I'm heading straight for the nearest coffee shop for a large iced Americano with whipped cream and soy sauce caramel."

"That does sounds good," Suyeon agreed. "I want to go out for pizza. Pepperoni and sausage."

They spent the next hour talking about different foods they missed from the outside world. Suyeon hoped she could get the conversation back around to Doyeon, but the opportunity never presented itself, and at any rate, a happy Yoojung was preferable to a depressed one. Once the sun was up, the other members began trickling in and fixing themselves breakfast. Suyeon saw Doyeon slip in, grab a tangerine, and slip back out. She put her teacup in the sink and followed Doyeon back to her room.

* * *

Afternoon was nearing its end on what was turning out to be Suyeon and Elly's most frustrating day in Weki Meki. Basically, it all boiled down to Doyeon and Yoojung each wanted an apology from the other, and neither one felt that they had done anything that they needed to apologize for. Suyeon and Elly had each talked to each of them several times, to the degree that the other members had figured out what was going on and were watching to see how things turned out. After one particularly fruitless round of negotiation, Suyeon had finally had enough. Stalking into the middle of the common room, she cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled "Weki Meki! Band meeting! Common room! NOW!"

The members all rushed in - they knew that it took a lot to get Suyeon angry, but once she was angry, she was a force of nature, not to be resisted. Once everyone had assembled, Suyeon stalked back and forth at the front of the room, glaring at all of them. Finally, she stopped, turned to all of them, and began speaking in a quiet, angry voice. "I know for certain that I've talked to every single damn one of you about what a bad idea it is to date another member of the group. But I always said I couldn't stop you. All I asked was that your dating not affect the rest of the group. But now it's started to affect the rest of the group, so here we are."

She stalked back and forth again, as if daring anyone to speak up. "First of all, for those of you who were trying to get me and Elly together, that was sweet, but it was totally unwanted and unneccesary. I mean, come on, Elly and I are roommates. Do you really think we couldn't figure it out if we wanted to date each other? Is that what you think of your unnies?" This question was met with an assortment of shaking heads and muttered no's. "So no, Elly and I aren't really a couple. That was just a front we put up to try to discourage any further matchmaking attempts. But really, that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that this plan led to the breaking up of what had always been the most stable relationship in the band. So: Doyeon and Yoojung, now that the matchmaking is at an end, there's no reason not to be together. Make it happen."

Doyeon and Yoojung both looked at Suyeon as if they couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. Suyeon looked from one of them to the other. "Doyeon - do you remember how much you missed Yoojung when we went to the U.S. last fall and she couldn't come with us? Yoojung - do you remember how much you missed Doyeon whenever she'd go away to film a drama? Now, go to your room, and I want you to keep those feelings in mind when you're talking to each other. And don't come back until you've either gotten back together or you've agreed to split up but still be friends and still be able to do skinships for the Ki-Lings. Now go!" As Doyeon and Yoojung scurried off to their bedroom, Suyeon swept her gaze over the rest of the group. "And the rest of you, you'll sit here until they get back. I don't want anyone interrupting them or giving them any excuse not to finish this conversation once and for all, right now."

And with that, she crossed to the side of the room and leaned against the wall, her seething rage still evident on her face. After a little while, she seemed to have calmed down somewhat, so Elly walked over and leaned on the wall next to her.

"Well, if your goal was to frighten the maknaes, I think you've succeeded," Elly said.

Suyeon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I just got so frustrated and I couldn't take it anymore. This is why I wish no one would date anyone in the group."

"But you see how that works out, especially given the current situation," Elly said.

Suyeon nodded. "At this point, I'm just all about damage control." She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall.

"Well, I think after this, if anyone does have any drama, they'll be super careful about not letting it affect the group - they'd be terrified not to," Elly said quietly.

Suyeon slid down the wall, collapsing into a heap.

Elly could hear Suyeon starting to cry. She down next to her and threw her arm around Suyeon's shoulders. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Suyeon sniffled and looked over at Elly. "I never wanted to be this kind of a leader. I saw groups where the leaders yelled and the maknaes were scared and I was so happy that Weki Meki wasn't like that, and now we are."

Leaned closer so they had a chance of talking without the maknaes overhearing. "I think you're still doing okay. I think making it this far into the quarantine without having yelled at anybody was quite an accomplishment. The members of my group chat had started a pool to see whose leader would go the longest without totally losing it. It came down to you and Gfriend's Sowon, and then she snapped yesterday."

Suyeon blinked slowly as if she was having difficulty processing this information. "You guys talked about this?"

Elly shrugged. "What else have we got to do? It's not like we can go anywhere. I'm friends with a lot of the members of other groups who are older members but aren't the leaders, so we started a group chat. It helped to be able to talk to someone who was experiencing some of the same things you were."

Suyeon nodded. "I can understand that. I wish the leaders' group chat worked that way, but there's too much competitiveness there for anyone to really open up."

"Suyeon?"

Suyeon looked up and saw Yoojung and Doyeon coming back into the common room. She noticed that they were holding hands, and that their eyes were red. 

"Suyeon?" Doyeon said quietly. "We got back together, and we're sorry we caused drama that affected the whole group. I guess it was just cabin fever, you know?"

Suyeon nodded. "I'm glad you're back together, and I'm sorry I yelled at everyone today. Let's not have another day like this one, okay?"

"I don't know," Elly said, "I thought furious Suyeon was kind of hot."

Suyeon stared at Elly in disbelief.

Elly held up her hands and pretended to back away. "Just kidding! Just kidding! I'm glad you're not angry anymore!"


	15. Epilogue

After seeming like it would never arrive, the last day of quarantine finally arrived. Things still weren't back to normal - they had to wear a mask when they went out, there was almost no one in the streets, and on Ki-Lings came out to see them when they went to events. Events were really weird - they were all filmed without an audience, and fansigns were done over the computer. It was a big deal to get to leave the apartment to go do a radio interview!

"What did you do during the quarantine?" the DJ asked.

"Probably about the same as everyone else," Doyeon responded, "did some reading, did some drawing, played a lot of mahjong and go-stop, watched too much TV. . ."

"I'm just really glad we had each other," Elly chimed in. "I feel bad for our Ki-Lings who had to quarantine by themselves! Stay strong, Ki-Lings! Fighting!"

"Was there anyone you missed getting to see during your quarantine?" the DJ asked.

"Of course, we missed getting to see our Ki-Lings," Yoojung answered, "plus we missed seeing our families."

The DJ leaned toward the mike and her voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "So there aren't any special guys you missed during quarantine?"

"Well, we're still under a dating ban," Doyeon said, "so we're not supposed to be thinking about that. We just try to work hard so we can put on a good show for our Ki-Lings."

The producer signalled to the DJ that it was time to wrap up the interview and go to commercial. 

"Well, there you have it, folks," the DJ said, "Weki Meki! They really are as sweet in person as they look on TV. Thank you for coming to talk with us, and after these messages, we'll be back with another 30 minutes of continuous music!" 

The producer hit the button that killed all of their microphones. The members of Weki Meki stood up to go. They all bowed to the DJ. 

"Thank you for having us on your show," Suyeon said. "You took very good care of us."

"I'm always happy to have you on," the DJ said. "I look forward to seeing you all at your next comeback!"

As they were filing out of the studio, the DJ got Suyeon's attention. "Suyeon-sshi," she said, "let me see your phone for a minute."

Unsure where this was going, Suyeon handed over her phone. The DJ entered her phone number, then texted her own phone so that she'd have Suyeon's number. "I'd like to hear from you before your next comeback. Keep in touch, okay?" She smiled and winked.

Elly, who had seen this whole exchange, couldn't resist teasing Suyeon about it as they walked out to the van. "Suyeon's got an admirer!" she said in a sing-song voice.

"What?" Suyeon seemed surprised by this idea. "You think so?"

Elly rolled her eyes at their leader's obliviousness. "She made sure you had her number. She made sure she had your number. She told you to keep in touch. She smiled and winked at you! If she wasn't hitting on you, then I've never seen anyone getting hit on!"

"Oh." Suyeon walked on in silence for a minute, then a smile gradually spread over her face. "That's nice," she said. "That's really nice."

Elly elbowed Suyeon to get her attention. "So? Are you going to text her?"

Suyeon kept smiling as she stared off into the distance. "Yeah," she finally said, turning to look at Elly. "Yeah, I think I am."

Elly smiled at her. "What happened to 'Suyeon can't date anyone because she's got to be all about Weki Meki'?"

Suyeon shrugged. "I figured, if it works for everyone else, why not me?"

Elly's smile got bigger. "Good for you, Suyeon! I hope you're happy."

"I think I will be," Suyeon said, a dreamy look on her face. "No matter what happens, I think I will be."


End file.
